When the Heart Knows
by SyringaDiane
Summary: The Bennet family have put their difference aside for Mary, George Wickham wants Lizzy back and William Darcy just wants her. Non-canon. I do not own any of Jane Austen's characters, but the story is mine.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1.

He looked around the room in despair; he did not want to be here tonight; he should have resisted Charles's begging. A good book in front of the fireplace with an excellent cup of coffee, that is what he should be doing right now or at Pemberley with his sister. As it is their arrival at the Cancer Awareness and Fund Raiser had caused quite a stir, everyone had stopped talking and were staring at them, he could already see the dollar signs in the eyes of the matchmaking mama's and their insipid daughters. To add to his joy Caroline Bingley clawed his arm, the stench of her perfume threatening to make him gag, she was whispering in his ear

"Oh William, what on earth are we doing in this place? Look at these plebeian people, staring at us, as if they have never seen class in their lives before!". It was not much of a whisper and a few people standing nearby seemed to come to their senses and gasp, turning to gossip with the person standing next to them. "Mr Bingley!" A voice boomed from a rather tall but rotund man, striding towards them. "We are delighted you and your friends could join us this evening for our little get together"

"Good evening Mr Lucas, we are delighted to be here, and looking forward to meeting our new neighbours and making friends" Charles stepped forward shaking Mr Lucas's hand.

"This is my younger sister Caroline; my other sister Louisa and her husband Theodore Hurst; And my good friend William Darcy; this is Mr John Lucas, the mayor of Merryton, he also run the local estate agency with his family; he recommended Netherfield to me when I was originally looking for property." Charles, always at ease regardless of the company, introduced them. William had always envied Charles ability to interacted with just about anyone.

"…Bingley's wealth is nothing compared to Mr Darcy, he is one of the wealthiest men in this country and one of the most eligible bachelors to boot! Where are my girls? Everyone knows they are the most beautiful girls in Merryton, he must fall in love with one of them!" William could hear a woman talking very loudly off to his left, turning his head he saw a woman staring at him with such avarice as she started calling out "Jane, Lydia, where are you girls?"

The double doors at the back of the room opened and in walked six good looking, well dressed women, five of whom had hair cropped short as almost to their scalps, they were obviously related as they resembled each other in more than just their cropped hair; a strikingly beautiful blonde girl, big cerulean blue eyes, with a tall slender build, dressed in a soft pink off the shoulder dress that fitted her body to just above the knee, complimenting her lightly tanned fair skin, a brunette with emerald green eyes, not as tall as the blonde, and slight curvier in a maroon halter neck dress that hugged her curves to mid-thigh at which point the skirt split down to her ankles revealing a tanned well-shaped leg. The third girl had pitch black hair, the same blue eyes as the blonde, a very gaunt figure with no shape, her green dress seemed to cover her body without revealing anything, the green made her very pale skin glow, the last two girls had the same brunette hair as the second, but the blue eyes of the other two, voluptuous figures with tans that was accentuated by their red empire line dresses that came to mid-thigh, appropriate with their ages, which appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen, they were either twins or really close in age. The sixth girl paled in comparison, despite having long brown hair and a cream tunic style dress that flattered her figure, ending above her knee. Williams eyes were drawn back to the girl with the green eyes, she was not classically beautiful like her blonde sister but the combination of her features made her exotic and she had something he could not define but he was definitely drawn to it.

"YOUR HAIR, what have you done to your hair?" the woman started to screech at the five girls, who linked arms and stared at the woman with defiance in their faces.

"Calm down mother, we did it for Mary, to show her our support and love, it is just hair and it will grow back!" said the brunette, her green eyes flashing, daring her mother to make a further scene.

"This is your doing Lizzie, you talked them into this!" hissed her mother.

"Matilda, will you stop making such a scene, we can talk about this tomorrow" a man had stepped up to the woman, presumably her husband, he took her arm and walked over to Mr Lucas.

Charles walked over to Mr Lucas "Please could you introduce us to your friends Mr Lucas?" smiling at everyone; until he made eye contact with one of the five girls; beautiful, even with her hair so short; blue eyes, light blonde hair and a classically perfect figure. She really stood out from almost everyone in the room. She lowered her head, blushing, but then she looked back up and their eyes connected.

"Come girls, Mr Bingley would like to be introduced" the mother called the girls. Mr Lucas chuckled happily

"Mr Bingley allow me to introduce you to one of our prominent families, the Bennet's; Mr Thomas Bennet, Mrs Bennet, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia, their daughters. And my own daughter Charlotte" His daughter being the sixth girl that had entered the room with the Bennet's.

Hellos and nice to meet yous were exchanged and Charles again introduced his own party. Then Charles asked Jane if she would like to dance, just as the band struck up the first tune for the evening, Jane looked surprised but pleased, the two of them headed off to the dance floor. The two younger Bennet girls, who looked about fifteen or sixteen, whispered to the middle daughter who looked about seventeen, took her hands and started to head toward the buffet table.

"Just going to get something to eat Lizzie, we will look after Mary tonight." Elizabeth smiled at her sister, and her green eyes softened as the three girls walked away.

"Perhaps some good has come out of this after all Lizzie?" William hear Charlotte say soft to Elizabeth. "Lydia and Kitty seemed to have grown up."

"At what price?" Elizabeth responded. "Come on Charlotte, for just a few hours let's relax a little and just have some fun, well as much as we can." Elizabeth was looking around the room, first checking where her parents were and then checking where her younger sisters were. Just then she seemed to notice him, making eye contact her green eyes sparkled.

"Mr Darcy, are you enjoying Merryton?"

"Not really" William spoke without thinking, been taken off guard.

"Oh dear, why not? It is not all bad, despite being quite a small town" Charlotte spoke from behind her friend.

"I am sure it is fine, we arrived today and it seems that the entire town knows who we are and we know no-one" William replied.

"The drawbacks of a small town Mr Darcy, most of the people were born and grew up here and newcomers are unfortunately, of great interest to everyone." Elizabeth spoke with a hint of challenge in her voice.

"Indeed" he replied, not really knowing what else to say.

A noise erupted from the buffet.

"Mary!" Elizabeth cried and immediately she and Charlotte made their way across the room, panic very visible in her green eyes. Mary was guided to one of the chairs arranged around the room, her face very pale and her eyes red. Three of her sisters gathered around her, soothing and helping her.

"Mary" the mother screeched and made her way towards her daughters. After reassuring herself that Mary was alright, she turned on Elizabeth "This is your doing, you always think you know best, you have to do things your way, never thinking about another living soul except yourself!"

"Mother, I choked on some biscuit, Lizzie was on the other side of the room, how on earth could it be her fault" Mary spoke firmly without shouting, but her voice carried across the whole room. Her mother looked a bit ashamed, but was still glaring at her second daughter.

"What a spectacle!" Caroline Bingley's voice was heard though out the room, "Really William, we gave up a quiet night at home for this!"

"Caroline!" Louisa tried to stop her sister. "

"Louisa, seriously, first those Bennet girls flounce into the party looking like cancer patients, then everyone makes a huge big scene because one of them is choking on biscuit! Have you ever in your life seen such low class behaviour" Caroline's voice carried across the entire room, the distain and disgust obvious to everyone.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

The temperature in the room dropped by at least ten degrees as Caroline finished speaking, and everyone there turned to start at the Netherfield party, and not in a good way. Just then Charles and Jane appear from the dance floor.

"What is going on?" Charles asked.

"Your sister was just being her normal ridiculous self and pissed off the entire town" Theodore spoke out "I think we'd better leave, before she opens her mouth again and we get lynched".

Charles looked confused and then a bit angry. "Will, please take Caroline, Louisa and Theo home, I will catch a cab home once I have sorted thing out here"

"Charles, there is no need for you to sort anything out, I haven't done anything wrong. If anything the Bennet's should apologise to us, to Will, causing a scene to get attention" Caroline was defiant.

Elizabeth started to walk across the room towards the Netherfield party, her back was ramrod straight, her shoulders were back and her green eyes were flashing; she looked magnificent. William was awestruck.

Jane reached out to take her sisters arm "Lizzie don't!" she implored.

"Please Lizzie…" Mary's voice seemed to reach her sister, Lizzie stopped and walked towards the rest of her sisters and put her arms around Mary. The sisters closed ranks and the town followed suit. Will declined going with Caroline, Louisa and Theo, remaining with Charles to try and fix the damage done by Caroline's thoughtless words.

Charles walked up to Jane, "I am so terribly sorry for Caroline, she really does not think before she speaks. Is there anyways I can make up for what she has done and said?"

"Thank you for your apology Charles, but it is not your fault. Caroline does not know the situation so she cannot understand that what she has said is so awful" Jane was so calm and gracious as she accepted Charles apology. William was curious about the situation that Jane referred to but it would have been rude to ask especially after Caroline's behaviour.

With Charles apology and Janes gentle ways the atmosphere improved. People moved back to eat, drinking and a few people even tried hitting the dance floor. Will and Charles said their goodbyes, called a cab and returned home. Neither man knew what to expect when they got home, and there was quite a bit of tension as they paid the cabbie and made their way into the house.

Caroline was on a roll, she was mouthing off about attention seeking girls, money grabbing mothers, referring to Mrs Bennet's comments when they arrived and the lack of class across the board in Merryton. "Will" she purred as he and Charles entered the room "Don't you agree? It was just horrid how they all salivated over you and your money".

William was stunned, it seemed that Caroline was okay with her own salivating over him and his money.

Charles was uncommonly quiet, so much so that even Caroline quietened down and they were all looking at him. "Caroline, I am heartily ashamed of your behaviour tonight. You utterly and totally humiliated all of us in front of an entire town and you did not even have the decency to apologise!" The tone of Charles voice should have warned Caroline she was on very thin ice but she did not notice.

"What on earth do you mean Charles? Every single person in there tonight was below us in wealth and stature? And don't get me started on those Bennet girls, just because you are all hot and horny for the eldest girl, even you cannot be blind to their attention and fortune seeking!"

"CAROLINE!" Charles shouted at his sister, Charles never shouts, Charles never gets upset. "Mary Bennet has leukaemia, she has been sick for over a year, she lost all of her hair at the start of her chemo, today she finished her last chemo. Her sisters cut their hair in solidarity with their sister, they donated their hair to make wigs for chemo patients. Elizabeth took a sabbatical from her law studies to support and assist her sister and her family. The entire town came together tonight to show their support for the Bennet family. The family has been through hell and back, and even now they are raising funds for cancer research and cancer patients; to make a difference. When last, Caroline, did you do something that was for someone else, even someone healthy? When last did you do something that was not selfish and only for yourself?"

Charles seemed to run out of steam, but as Caroline was preparing to speak again, he held up his hand, "No Caroline, no more tonight, I don't want to speak to you now. Tomorrow morning, I am going to volunteer at the Fun Run the Bennet family have arranged to raise funds for more cancer research, any of you are welcome to join me, but even if I have to go alone, I am going" And with that Charles left the room and made his way to his bedroom.

"Will, you have to speak to him, you know that I care, I care about Giana and sick people, and things…." Caroline's voice trailed off, she dropped the hand she was about to put on Williams arm. The look on his face said it all, he was as disgusted with her as her brother was. Instead of realising that she was at fault in the situation, she got angry, turned on her heel and stomped off to her bedroom. Will waited until he was sure she was in her room, and he made his way to his own room, making sure to lock the door, he had had too many occasions where Caroline had just walked into his room, he had even found her in his bed once, waiting for him. Despite getting no encouragement from him she was determine to have him one way or the other.

Once he had brushed his teeth, changed and gotten into bed, William allowed his thoughts to wander over the events of the evening. Caroline had made them all seem bad, none of them, except Charles, had stopped her or spoken out against her. The look on Elizabeth Bennet's face as she walked towards them was not limited to just Caroline, she had been looking at Theo, Louisa and himself as if they were the spawn of Satan, and she was the avenging angel sent to destroy them. A beautiful avenging angel, whose green eyes were imprinted in his mind. He processed the information Charles had shared with them, his mind wandered to Georgiana, his little sister, her own battle with leukaemia still fresh in his mind, she had only just be declared officially in remission but the three year battle was tough on the whole family, made worse by Aunt Catherine insisting almost monthly that he marry Anne to have more Darcy heirs, with it being just him and Georgiana left; George Wickham's romancing his sister in the hopes of marrying her; trying to talk her into trying all kinds of 'snake oil' remedies and forsaking the doctors instructions, so that on her death he could inherit her fortune, he was shameless in his admission when William confronted him.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3.

The next morning Charles was surprised, William was already up and eating breakfast when he walked into the kitchen. Will was not sure what exactly volunteering for the Fun Run meant as yet, but he reckoned a hearty breakfast would be required, he had made some eggs with toast and a very strong brew of coffee. Charles was not by habit an early riser but just in case William had been sure to make enough for at least one other person.

"Good morning Will" Charles chirped cheerfully.

"Morning Charles. There are eggs and toast in the oven, and coffee in the pot, we can get going as soon as you are ready" Will wanted Charles to know that he supported him, both with regards to Caroline and the Fun run. Charles gratefully dished up some breakfast, made himself some coffee and sat down at the counter with Will. As they were finishing their breakfast Louisa and Theo walked into the kitchen

"Morning Charlie" Louisa reach over and kissed her brother on the cheek. "I am proud of you" she whispered in his ear.

"Thank you" Charles smiles. Theo and Louisa greeted Will and started to make themselves breakfast.

"I am sorry, if I had known everyone would be up this early, I would have made for everyone" said Will.

"That's okay, we're just going to have some cereal and coffee so that we can get going to the Fun Run" Theo said whilst getting bowls and cereal out of the cupboards. Louisa was make the coffee and getting the milk. The couple quickly ate their breakfast and were ready go.

As everyone made their way to the door Caroline made her way down the stairs "Good morning, is everyone deserting me this morning?" She whined "Louisa, I thought you were going to do my nails today? They are a mess! Will, you have barely spent any time with me at all, how can I be your girlfriend if we don't get to know one another intimately"

There was stunned silence, 'Good bye Caroline, we will see you sometime later" Charles greeted his sister and then herded everyone else out the door to the car. Caroline could be heard screaming and throwing things as they drove away.

Charles drove to the town centre and found parking. People were already gathering on what seemed to be the village common. Signs indicated a registration table and the direction to get food and cool drinks. Charles lead the group up to the registration table, which was manned by the two youngest Bennet girls, Kitty and Lydia, who were talking and joking with people who were registering for the race.

"Charles, Good morning" Jane waved at them from a group of people just behind the table.

"Good morning" Charles greeted as he walked over to the group, not knowing what else to do, William, Theo and Louisa followed him.

"Good morning" Jane greeted them all with an open smile, seeming genuinely happy to see all of them. "I love your outfit" she complimented Louisa.

Not being used to getting any attention Louisa blushed and stammered out "Thank you". She did look very nice in a deep blue tracksuit and matching sneakers. "I don't actually want to run, if there some other way I could help out?" she asked Jane.

"Oh yes, would you mind helping out at one of the water tables? We are always short on volunteers for those" Jane replied.

"Can I also help out at a water table" Theo piped up, "I have not run since Uni, I think I might do more harm than good running."

Jane giggled, "Yes of course, you two can work at the same table, you are so cute together!"

Charles smiled happily at his sister and brother in law, "What can Will and I do, Jane? We are not afraid of hard work."

"We need marshals along the path and someone with a knowledge of first aid" Jane said looking them over.

"Will is a doctor" said Charles, "Well he studied medicine, he is not a practising doctor"

Jane looked at William, her blue eyes searching his face, "Would you mind being our medic Mr Darcy? Normally the GP fills the position but he has been called away to deliver Mrs Garthwaites baby, which has breached"

"I don't mind at all. And please call me Will or William"

"Ah Lizzie, we have a medic" Jane looked past William at Lizzie who had just walked up.

"Really? I was afraid we would have to cancel because we did not have one. Who's our medic?"

William turned around "I am" Lizzie looked stunned, her green eyes conveying the questions running through her head.

"He is a doctor, qualified but not practising." said Charles, smiling at Jane, Lizzie and William.

"Not practising?" Lizzie said without thinking.

"No, not practising" said Will, his tone indicating that it was not up for discussion.

"Okay then…" said Lizzie, feeling a bit put off by his attitude.

"Denny, would you mind driving Louisa and Theo out to water point four, they will be manning that for us." Jane asked one of the young men standing around, "I will take Charles over to the marshal's tent for the briefing, and Lizzie can take Will to the medical tent."

Everyone departed to their various points, William following Lizzie across the common to a white tent, walking inside she hugged the woman inside, Charlotte smiled, "Hi Lizzie!" Seeing William standing behind Lizzie "Good morning Mr Darcy"

"Mr Darcy is our medic, he is a 'non practising' doctor'" Lizzie explained to Charlotte, William thought he could hear sarcasm in her voice when explaining to Charlotte. Charlotte wisely, just nodded and thanked him for being prepared to help out. Lizzie chatted to Charlotte for a bit, just covering what was required from a health and safety point of view, the HSO would be coming around but it should be pretty routine, especially now that Mr Darcy was assisting. As she started to walk out of the tent, she turned around

"Thank you for helping out Mr Darcy, we would have had to postpone if we did not have some kind of medical person here. We really appreciate you volunteering ". Her green eyes seemed to see right down into his soul, he felt exposed and vulnerable.

"My pleasure. And its William or Will"

She smiled. "See you guys" and walked out of the tent.

For a moment William felt as if all the happiness has just left the world. He turned and looked at Charlotte.

"I am your nurse" she smiled "basically outside of Lizzie I am the only other person who does not faint at the sight of blood, however I have no medical training and am at your mercy"

Will smiled, "Not fainting at the sight of blood is a good start". He and Charlotte started to do an inventory of the medical equipment in the tent and arranging it so that William would know where everything was when he needed it. The HSO came around, did a brief inspection, chatted to William, looked at his license and signed off. Charlotte took the HSO up to Lizzie and the race was official on.

All was quiet for the first hour, and then Lizzie showed up with a runner, leaning on her heavily, blood pouring down his leg, Will relieved her of her burden and got to work. Lizzie stood at the back of the tent observing for a while, and then returned to whatever it was she was busy with. There was a steady trickle of minor scrapes and bruises as the race progressed, nothing hectic or earth shattering. Half an hour before cut off time Lizzie raced into the tent

"Mr Forsythe is having a seizure of some kind" her eyes and her hair wild. Will grabbed the medical bag he had prepped earlier, and followed Lizzie to the golf cart outside the tent, it seemed to take forever to get to the man.

Will started his examination, the man was having a heart attack, and a bad one at that. Will began to treat the patient, zoning out everything and everyone around him. He barked out at one stage for Lizzie to call an ambulance, to let them know it was a middle age male having cardiac arrest. Having done all he could to stabilise the man, monitoring his condition until the ambulance arrived, Will's mind started to wander, to his own father's heart attack whilst he was studying to become a doctor. He had done what he could but still he watched his father die right in front of his eyes. Wickham had just stood gaping while Will tried to help his father doing CPR, phoning for the ambulance, trying to reassure Giana, trying to not lose the plot. His father was pronounced dead by the EMT's, who also tried for quite a while to revive his father. They were great, praising Will for his actions but at the end of the day his father left the house in a body bag. It was the beginning of the end of Williams medical career. Wickham turned on him the very next day, taunting him about being so high and mighty, studying medicine and he could not save his own father. It was not long after that Will threw him out of the house. "Will?" he heard his name being called, he looked up, Lizzy was looking at him, concern on her face "Are you okay? You seemed to leave the planet for a while there? The EMT's are here"

They loaded the man into the ambulance, thanked Will for his work, the man was going to be okay. Wills sense of loss almost overwhelmed him, he could save a complete stranger but his own father was dead.

"Will?" Lizzie tried to get his attention, she put her hand on his arm, "William" He looked at her, "I will take you back to the medic tent…or do you need to go somewhere else?"

The look on his face tore at her heart, he looked so lost, and sad. "The medic tent is fine thanks" he said softly, and walked to the golf cart. They travelled back in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

As they climbed out Lizzie put her hand on his arm "You did a wonderful job back there, that man owes you his life." Instead of looking happy, Will looked even more sad, and walked into the tent and started treating the patients waiting. Despite her anger at the whole Netherfield party the previous evening, she noticed that everyone except Caroline had arrived to help out at the race. Louisa and Theo had been making friends at the water table, Charles had encouraged each of the runners passing him at his marshal station and then Will, standing in as their medic; that surprised her more than anything.

She had googled him when she got home the previous night; he was second on the list of most eligible rich bachelors; CEO of Darcy Corp, Marketing and Media company, all at a very young age thirty. There was a brief mention of a younger sister and not much more, he appeared to be a very private person.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4.

After the race, everyone who volunteered headed over to the local burger restaurant, Vibes which also had a dance floor, a live band and on occasion karaoke. The vibe was tired but happy, it was a great success not just from a fund raising point of view but as a mood lifting, team building exercise for the small town. Everyone was relaxed and feeling good, it was nice to feel part of something, it was very different to the previous evening. Louisa and Theo had joined in the line dancing and were making friends with the couples next to them, Louisa looked pretty and happy, Theo was relaxed and having fun, instead of just drinking himself into a stupor. It was the first time in a very long time they had all been out, without Caroline, it was quite an eye opener how much she affected them all. Will was happy for Louisa, he had always liked her, she never tried to date him or seduce him, she had always just accepted him as Charles friend. Charles was also line dancing, with Jane, he was not very good at it but they were laughing and he looked about 5 years younger.

Will look around trying to find Lizzie; he saw her two younger sisters over at the soda fountain, flirting with two cowboy looking boys. It was not overt or vulgar, they were just young girls having fun, he got the impression there had not been much of that in the Bennet family's lives recently.

Mary was sitting with the band, chatting to them on their breaks, but otherwise just sitting watching everyone. The two younger girls walked over to her and the three of them walked to the outside section at the back. Someone had built a fire in the fire pit; and Will could hear faint singing coming from outside. He walked outside, with the exception of Jane who was dancing with Charles, the rest of the Bennet family was sitting outside with their friend around the fire. Lizzie was sitting on a log, with a guitar in hand, strumming out a song that everyone seemed to know. At the end of the song, Mary asked "Lizzie, please play Rise" Lizzie smiled adoringly at her sister and began to strum

As she began to sing Will was entranced, her voice was strong, and vibrating right into his being. He became aware that he was more than a little bit taken with Elizabeth Bennet, she fascinated him, he thought perhaps he would try and get to know her better, perhaps become more than just friends.

"Here you are Will. I have been looking for you everywhere" Wills blood ran cold as Caroline's voice rose above the singing, above the people talking…she slipped her hand through his arm, claiming him in front of everyone.

He lost it, "What do you want Caroline, why are you here?"

"That is no way to talk to your girlfriend Will, you left me alone the whole day, the least you can do is come home to bed, its cold without you" Caroline simpered at him, with what she thought was a sexy pout. Will pulled his arm away from her

"You need to have your hearing tested Caroline; I could not have made it clearer. You are NOT my girlfriend, not now, not ever" He turned around, walked through the restaurant, and out into the street, not caring where he walked. Caroline ran after him

"Will, wait for me, wait for me, we need to talk, you need to understand" Will just kept on walking, grateful that Caroline was as usual wearing high heeled shoes and could not keep up with him.

"Climb in" Will started as a voice came from beside him, there was Mary, in a golf cart. Without hesitating Will climb on and Mary drove off. He could hear Caroline screeching for him to come back, and that was not going to happen.

"You looked like you needed to make a getaway" Mary smiled at him.

Will smiled back, "Yeah, thanks"

"So you like my sister?" Although it was a question, Will was pretty sure it was also a statement, he did not respond but he did give a nod of his head. "Do you want to go back or should I drop you at Netherfield?" she gave him his options.

"I am not sure the golf cart would make it to Netherfield" he chuckled.

Mary laughed, "Yes, we would have to swop to the car for that. I get the feeling that you are not comfortable with a lot of people, and might want to have a bit of time to yourself. No-one will know that you have gone back, I will just let Charles know"

"Thank you" Will did not know what else to say, she read him to a T in this instance. Mary pulled the golf cart up behind Vibes.

"I am just going to get the keys, wait here" she said as she headed inside.

A few minutes later Lizzie appear, car keys in hand. "Mary is under sister arrest and being forced to rest, I will be your driver for the evening" she said in a playful voice, heading towards a black pickup. She unlocked and they climbed in, she turned on the radio and reversed out of the parking, turning to head to Netherfield.

The drive passed in comfortable companionship, the music from the radio removed the need for conversation; neither one feeling like making small talk. When they arrived Lizzie turned off the radio. "Thank you for helping out today, you made a big difference."

Will climbed out "My pleasure Elizabeth, thanks for the ride, and thank Mary for me too"

"Sure, are you going to be okay?" Will was surprised that she asked.

"Yeah, I will be fine…. would you like to come in for a coffee or tea?" There was silence, Will took it as a no and started heading towards the house, feeling more than just a little bit disappointed.

"Yes, coffee would be great" he heard her say from behind him, his heart was thumping so loud he was sure she could hear it.

"Great, come on in" He said unlocking the door and turning on the light.

Lizzie followed him into the house, looking around at the impressive structure, Netherfield was one of the oldest houses in Merryton, the original ranch house.

"I have not been inside Netherfield for over 10 years" she said. "The Smiths used to live here back in the day, Jessica and Jade were their twin daughters, they were the same age as me. We used to spend every spare moment together, either out in the grounds or playing hide and seek in the attics and spare rooms."

She followed him to the kitchen, he put the coffee on to brew and took out two cups. "How you take your coffee?" he asked.

"Milk and one sugar" she replied, sitting at the counter. He looked at her, and at that moment she looked at him, nothing was said but it felt like a million words were said.

"You're a bit of an enigma William" she finally said.

"How so?" he asked.

"You spoke to no-one last night and did not socialise, you have ninja doctor skills and got Mary out of her shell long enough to rescue you. And that is just the last 24 hours" Her voice was non-judgemental, soft and her mouth curled into a smile.

"I am not comfortable around strangers, when I was younger I had a stammer which opened me up for teasing and ridicule, I never really got over the anxiety of meeting new people" he said, picking up the two cups and handing one to her; meeting her gaze with his; very alarmed at how much he had just shared with her.

"I get that, Mary is like that, not that she had a stammer, but she is painfully shy, more so than Jane, and with sisters like me, Kitty and Lydia, she did not really stand a chance" she smiled ruefully.

"But you look out for her, you do not belittle her for it, none of you do" there was a sadness in his soft reply.

He led the way to the sitting room, inviting her to sit. The room was very tastefully decorated, with three large red couches around a low square coffee table, the laminated floor was covered with a large red, orange and yellow shaded rug, giving the room a very warm feel, despite the large picture windows that afforded amazing views of the well maintained gardens, not that she could see that far into the gardens in the dark but she knew from previous years how lovely the gardens were.

She placed her coffee on the table and walked to the windows.

"The view is far more spectacular in the day" he said coming to stand behind her, she could hear the smile in his voice.

"I know, but it is still quite special at night" she replied turning around, suddenly realising how close he actually was, one small step forward and they would be touching. She looked up at him, her green eyes bright and questioning. Without saying a word, he stepped closer and brought his hands up around her waist and pulled her closer to him, all the time with his eyes fixed on hers, his hands slid around her back pulling her closer still, his eyes moving down to her lips as he lowered his head. All manner of warning ran through her head but her body was just not listening as their lips met.

She was transported to a world that only existed for the two of them, every fibre and nerve of her body came alive and wanted to connect with him, her hands had moved around his neck and into his curls, without her even having to think about it. She could feel the hard planes of his chest against her breasts and stomach, his arousal pressing against her lower stomach, the warmth of his hands as they moved on her back, his tongue searching inside her mouth.

He pulled back slightly to look down at her as the kiss ended "I have wanted to do that since you walked into the event last night" His forehead touching hers.

She looked surprised, "You looked horrified to be there last night, as if we were all beneath you."

"Resting Darcy face' he replied "it's like resting bitch face, and always active when Caroline is around"

She burst out laughing, a warm rich sound that made him want to kiss her again. But she pulled out of his arms and went to sit on the couch, picking up her coffee and taking a sip. "Tell me about Mr William Darcy" she commanded. He picked up his cup and went to sit next to her, not close enough that they were touching but close enough that he could touch her if he just reached out. He watched to see if she was comfortable with his proximity, she did not shift or lean away from him, in fact he could swear she leant slightly towards him.

"That is very open ended Miss Elizabeth Bennett, you will have to be more specific; and for every question you ask me, I must be allowed to ask you one, that is only fair!"

She smiled broadly "I hear you have a sister, tell me about her"

He was stunned, most people would ask about his money, his company or his property; no-one ever asked about Georgiana. "My sister? Okay, she is 14 years younger than me, I don't think my parents thought they would have another child after so many years trying, she was a very welcomed surprise for all of us. She looks nothing like me, she is beautiful, blonde and exceptionally graceful. She does not walk, she dances and glides, with her own internal music" he smiled to himself "She shares my shyness without the stammer, but is soft and caring, she believes the best in everyone and ends up being hurt by reality when she is let down or betrayed" his voice grew quieter but harder as he got lost in the memory of this last betrayal, she never seemed to recover from George Wickham.

"Will?" he felt her hand on his arm, he turned and smiled at her.

"Sorry, I got lost in my own mind for a second there"

"Yip, I was about to go and look in the cupboard for Narnia you were so far away" he chuckled at her literary reference.

Their eyes met and their heads moved closer together, lips meeting, tongues questing, hands reaching out; he pulled her onto his lap, holding her close, feeling her breath on his cheek, the rise and fall of her ribs as her breath increased, the small moan that came from within her. His hand moved up to cup her face and the intensity of the kiss deepened. He felt as if he could not get close enough to her, running his hands over her short hair, the firm softness of her body against the hard musculature of his, the heat they were generating between the two of them.

They did not hear the car pull up to the house, but they did hear Caroline's voice calling from the entrance "Will! Will! Where are you? Are you home?"

He placed her on the couch next to him, smiled at her, handed her coffee back to her and smiled "I am sorry!" he said.

She was not sure what he was sorry for, but she turned to look as Caroline entered the room. She heard him say "You own me a question Miss Bennet", his low voice as intimate as the kiss they just shared.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5.

"Oh, what are you doing here?" Caroline asked the moment she saw Lizzy.

"Caroline!" Charles walked in behind his sister, followed by Louisa and Theo; he looked mortified by his sisters lack of basic manners.

"Hi Lizzy" Louisa and Theo greeted her and came to sit on the couch opposite her and Will. "I had so much fun tonight" Louisa sparkled "The line dancing was just the best, everyone was so friendly and hospitable. We have been invited to a barbeque tomorrow at a couple called Tom and June, they just met us tonight!"

"That is the upside of a small town" said Lizzy "and the downside" they all laughed, except Caroline, who was sitting on the arm of the couch right next to Will, despite the fact that there was more than enough couch space in the room for her to sit, even with Charles sitting half reclined on the third couch. She draped her hand possessively over Wills shoulder

"It's so nice of you to keep my Will company Eliza, I would have come home with him had I known he was leaving so soon"

Will shrugged her hand off his shoulder "I am not your Will Caroline, I am your brothers friend, and by default we get to spend time in each other's company, nothing more" his voice was weary, as if this was not the first time he was telling her this.

She laughed "Oh Will, everyone knows that the attraction between us in undeniable!" Everyone else in the room was feeling very awkward.

"No, Caroline, everyone knows that you are desperate for Will, and Will has run out of ways to let you know that he is just not interested" Theo spoke out, earning him a glare from Caroline.

"I must be going" Lizzy stood up, breaking the awkwardness that filled the room, "It has been a long day and my family is also going to the barbeque tomorrow, so I need to get some rest" She picked up her cup and headed towards the kitchen. Will followed her, she turned around

"Good night, thank you for the coffee and for helping out with the fun run" she looked around at Charles, Louisa and Theo, who said good bye in return.

"I will walk you to your car" said Will. Caroline leapt up off and made to follow them.

Charles grabbed her arm, "Caroline, we need to talk" pulling her in the direction of his study.

"Well that was intense" Lizzy said reaching her car, turning around to look at Will, his face only half visible in the night light.

"I am so sorry about Caroline; I am starting to think she has some kind of denial disorder"

"Perhaps her interruption was not all bad, we've only just met…. we should perhaps take time to get to know each other more than just physically?" she was desperately trying to see his face properly to gauge his feelings.

"There is nothing I would like more than to spend more time with you, getting to know you Elizabeth" she shivered at the way he said her full name, it sounded like a caress. He cupped her face with his hand, and softly kissed her on the mouth "Good night, Elizabeth. Please drive safely and sleep well"

"Good night William, you sleep well too" she climbed into her car, and drove off into the night.

Will lay in his bed, remembering their kisses, wishing she was lying next to him right now; talking and sharing her thoughts and feelings, her warmth radiating next to him. He should have gotten her cell number, he wondered if she got home safely. His phone vibrated, he picked it up thinking it was probably his sister. It was a WhatsApp message from Lizzy

[Home safely. Sweet Dreams – Elizabeth] he smiled

[Thank you, Sweet dreams to you too – Will] [How did you get my number?"] he replied to her text

[Your volunteer form, I hope you don't mind?] she responded

He was delighted, and she did not abbreviate her text. He hated that Caroline did it all the time.

[I don't mind at all, very resourceful!]

[Thank you, now I really need to sleep. Night]

He smiled into the dark as he replied [Night].

He rolled over, feeling happier than he had in a very long time. Instead of lying awake for most of the night he fell asleep almost immediately, dreaming of a green eyed sprite.

Lizzy plugged her phone into charge, her mind replaying the events of the last 24 hours. She had so misjudged him, thinking him to be stuck up and rude when she met him, to understanding that he was painfully shy, intensely caring and sensual beyond belief. Her body reacted just thinking about his kisses and his hands on her body. She realised that at no stage did he try and go further than just kissing, despite how her body reacted they had just kissed. His hands had been on her back, on her waist, on her neck and her face and that alone had set her on fire, she had never reacted to a single man this way, and she knew he was affected in a similar way. Not even George Wickham had evoked such a sexual reaction out of her, until now she had felt no inclination to give her virginity to a man, she always thought her heart would know when it was the right person and the right time.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6.

Lizzy woke up to Mary sitting on her bed, "Lizzy, I am not feeling very well. Please could you take me to the doctor, and not tell our family? Well at least do not tell them now, wait until I have seen the doctor"

"Are you sure Mary? Mom and dad will be upset that you did not tell them" Lizzy knew exactly how her mother would react. She was trying to ignore the pit that was forming in her own stomach, this was not about her, this was about Mary.

"Yes, please Lizzy, I know that mom is going to blame you and I am sorry but I just cannot deal with her hysterics right now" Lizzy could not say no to Mary, she understood how taxing her mother could be. Her mother was consumed with guilt that she had basically ignored Mary all of her life until she got sick, and was now trying to make up for it by smothering Mary with attention.

Lizzy sat in the waiting room, whilst Mary was attended to by Dr Bernard. Her face drawn with worry for Mary, any infection or illness would be such a setback in Marys road to health.

"Lizzy Bennet?" a voice broke through her worry, she looked up, there was George Wickham, smiling at her as if the last two years had not happened.

"George! You are back?"

"Yes, stand up, let me give you a hug" she absentmindedly stood up and he hugged her, pressing his body right up against her, she barely responded, surprised to see him and wanting him to let her go.

"How long are you back for this time?" she asked, not really interested but she asked anyways.

"I am back for good Lizzy, I got a job with the local media house here is Merryton. What happened to your hair Lizzy?"

"My sisters and I cut our hair in solidarity with Mary"

"Oh wow, that is kind of you, I loved your long hair, I hope it does not take too long to grow back" she was not sure but she could almost hear an air of patronising in his voice as he said that, she was also irritated that he felt he had the right to comment on his preference for her hair. He and Mary had never gotten along. From the first day Lizzy brought George home to meet her family, he had charmed everyone except her father and Mary. The more charming George became the less they seemed to like him. When Mary got sick he resented the time that Lizzy spent with Mary, and it was one of the reasons he gave when he told Lizzy he was leaving Merryton to go work for a Media house on the other side of the country. The other being that she did not love him enough to have sex with him.

Lizzy did not have enough time to miss him, Marys condition had required the whole family to pull together as never before, even her mother had stepped up. And as things returned to normal she realised that she had not missed George even once. She was relieved that he was no longer in her life.

"Are you going to Tom and Junes Barbeque later?" George asked, still standing close to Lizzy, almost rubbing his body against hers.

She side stepped away from him, feeling very uncomfortable with his proximity "Yes, my whole family is going to be there and the visitors from Netherfield"

"Finally, someone has taken the old place, nice! What are they like?" he asked, she could not help feeling there was more to that question than he had voiced.

"They are mostly nice, they helped out at the fun run fund raiser yesterday, you will meet them later"

"I am actually staying with Tom and June, he hooked me up for the position when he heard I was looking to come back to Merryton" George told her.

Just then Mary came out of the doctors consulting room, Dr Bernard directly behind her. He glared at George "Wickham, you are back!"

"Hey Doc, yes, back for good"

Mary did not look happy either, she did not greet George, and Lizzy could not help but notice that George did not even acknowledge Mary, she frowned at George, who put his finger on her brow

"Don't frown so Lizzy, it will give you wrinkles!' he laughed. "See you later Lizzy" and he sauntered off.

"I still do not like or trust him Lizzy, please don't date him again!" Mary said, her eyes begging Lizzy to listen.

"I promise you George and I are strictly just friends. I have no intention of dating him again" Lizzy tried to put her sister at ease,

"I prefer Will, he might be quiet but he is not a player" Mary stated, her rescue of Will the night before confirming her preference.

Dr Bernard turned to Lizzy, "Mary is fine, she is stressed, which is to be expected but she must get enough sleep and eat properly. I see no sign of things getting worse, in fact quite the opposite. I have drawn blood to test but please keep the stress to a minimum." He turned to Mary "Are you going to the barbeque later?"

"I don't know, I am not sure want to deal with any more socialising, this weekend has already been pretty busy." Mary sounded frustrated. "And everyone keeps wanting to know how I am, it gets pretty boring repeating the same thing over and over or finding different ways of saying the same thing over and over."

"You can use me as an excuse to not go, doctors order!" he smiled at her. Lizzy had a feeling that if Mary was not his patient he would try and date her. He had attended several of her performance with the orchestra and come to most of their fund raisers over the last year since he started being her doctor.

"Okay, thank you Dr Bernard" Lizzy took Marys arm and they walked out to the car, "How about cinnabun and some coffee. Or herbal tea for you?"

Mary smiled "You read my mind Lizzy, I could so do a cinnabun about now" And for the next hour Lizzy was at peace, she listened to Mary talk about the new music piece she was learning, and how it fitted into the orchestra, despite how sick Mary had been she stuck with her job at the local orchestra, her natural talent giving her peace during the really tough times.

They spoke a bit about George, his return to town, how this would affect Lizzy, and by default their family. Mary reminded Lizzy that their mother was as in love with George as Lizzy had thought she was, she waxed lyrically about Lizzy marrying George and was devastated when he left. On the other side of the coin, her father could not stand George, in more than one conversation George had tried to put him down, turning very petulant when Mr Bennet turned the tables on him and humiliated. Mary voiced her concern that George was not just going to let Lizzy go, she was considered one of the most attractive woman in town but the most unavailable, which made her a challenge. Mary was convinced that George was not beyond dirty tricks to get Lizzy.

They returned home reluctantly, getting take away cinnabuns to explain their early morning absence. The noise level at the Bennet household was as always loud and energetic, Lizzy questioned the additional sugar they were adding by bringing the cinnabuns.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7.

Lizzy would not admit it but she dressed with extra care for the barbecue, knowing that Will would be there. Her dark blue jeans fitted her like a glove without looking trashy, her boots over the jeans accentuated her shapely legs, and the emerald green cold shoulder cashmere top made the green of her eyes stand out, she added a brush of mascara and some lip gloss to give a natural fresh face look, she missed her long hair but still the short hair was edgy and easy.

Jane smiled as Lizzy came downstairs, "Lizzy you look beautiful!" she said.

"So do you Janey" Jane always looked good. Her blue wrap detail shirt fitted her slim figure well, with crisp white capris and white sneakers, she also only applied mascara and lip gloss, a beauty like hers did not need make up.

Lydia and Kitty came downstairs, and amazingly they did not look like tramps, both of them had on boyfriend jeans that were loose even by Lizzies standards, converse sneakers, Lydias pink, Kittys peach, white off the shoulder tops with vests underneath that matched their sneakers. Again amazingly they had copied Lizzy and Jane with minimal make up, they both looked beautiful. Before Mary got sick their dress style was questionable, verging on Teenage Tramp, but now they were more conservative and appropriate for their age. Lizzy felt so proud of her younger sisters and how they had stepped up in this time of crises.

They turned to look up the stairs and said "Tada!" Mary appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed similarly to Kitty and Lydia, except her sneakers and vest were yellow. She looked beautiful as well, but vulnerable and young. The five girls hugged, and started giggling.

"My girls! I think I need to invest in a shotgun now" they turned to their father who was coming out of his study.

"Dad, really?" Lydia exclaimed but her exasperation erased as she bounced over to her father to give him a hug.

"Girls, I am so proud of all of you, it would have been so easy for each of you to become selfish and seek attention, but by standing together you are gotten more attention that you realise." Their father had tears in his eyes, as he addresses his girls, his pride so evident in his face and voice.

"We are late! Why are we all standing around" Matilda Bennett could be heard though out the house, never mind that they were running late waiting for her. Everyone grabbed a bowl of something and the family piled into their cars, Mary, Lydia and Kitty travelling with their parents, Jane and Lizzy taking Lizzy's pickup.

They put their bowls in the kitchen, greeting June and offering to help with the food preparation, hugs and greetings were exchanged and Mr Bennett did a disappearing act to join Tom outside at the fire.

"What do we have here?" June asked, as she looked at the bowls the Bennet's had brought

"Deep dish layered salad, pickled peppers, Moms special savoury bread, Chocolate Gatteau and a Strawberry Trifle' Jane indicated to each bowl, "and some steaks for the barbecue"

"Lovely, I am so glad you brought the bread, you know that is Toms favourite, I must get the recipe from you" June was grateful, you could always count on the Bennetts to bring ample food, and making her job as hostess easier.

Everyone made their way out of the kitchen into the living area and patio. The Netherfield party was already there, Charles and Theo were outside at the fire with Tom, Mr Bennett and George Wickham. Caroline was sitting up close and personal to Will on one of the couches, with Louisa sitting opposite them trying to explain one of the line dances to Caroline. Louisa's face lit up on seeing the Bennetts and she made a bee line for Jane, and the two of them walked out to the fire, where Jane could greet Charles, Theo, Tom and George.

Lizzy looked at Will, if she thought his face was dark and broody on the night she met him, it was ten times worse today, and he was glaring at George from where he was sitting. His whole body was tense and he was ignoring whatever Caroline was trying to talk to him about.

"Hi Will, Hi Caroline" Lizzy greeted.

"Hello Eliza" Caroline sneered, looking Lizzy up and down. Lizzy was offended, considering that Caroline had dressed as if she was going to a formal event, with a tight very short black dress and high heeled black shoes, more make up that all of the Bennett girls put together and her hair in an elaborate up do.

"It's Lizzy, or Elizabeth, NOT Eliza" she was irritated with Caroline. Caroline just smirked and shrugged.

Will stood up and walked over to her "Hello, did you sleep well?" he smiled but he looked sad and tormented.

"Yes, thank you, and you?" Lizzy stared at him in concern.

"Well my dreams were delightful, there was a green eyed sprite that keep teasing me" his smile reached his eyes as he said this. But then his eyes move back to the group standing outside and his face fell.

"What's wrong?" Lizzy was really worried. Before Will could say anything Lizzy felt herself being hugged from behind.

"Hello my Lizzy" George breathed into her ear. She pulled his arms off her, turned around and stepped back.

"Hello again George, and I am not your Lizzy, we broke up remember, you left remember? We are just friends"

"Don't you remember how good we were together? Don't fight it Lizzy!" George turned up his charm, something that would always have worked back then.

"I remember a lot of things George, especially the part where we broke up" Lizzy's voice was low and it hummed with anger.

"Ah, a lovers' tiff, don't stay angry with him Eliza, I have heard all about your epic love affair" Caroline had made her way over and had slipped her hand into Wills.

Lizzy looked at their intertwined hands, she could hear George talking to her in that voice he always used when he was trying to talk her into having sex with him, her mother talking loudly outside about how much the family liked George, and she could not wait for him to be her son-in-law; she looked up into Wills face, so much hurt and pain was reflected there; he was trying to remove Caroline's hand from his, She turned and walked outside, she could not deal with all of this, not after the morning she had had. She crossed the stream at the end of the property and walked into the woodlands adjacent to the property, following the path to the swing that had be put up by one of the Merryton residents for the neighbourhood children. Pulling herself onto the swing, she tried to quieten her thoughts. She knew Will was not involved or even attracted to Caroline, but Caroline's behaviour was off putting. She did not want to get back together with George and she wished he had not come back to town, her mother never understood why she did not follow George when he moved, her mother had planned their wedding by their third date.

"Am I intruding?" she heard Wills voice, she looked up, she was not aware of how much time had passed, he was standing just off the path, looking at her. "No, I am glad you followed me" her heart seemed to beat a little fast to see him standing there. George had never followed her, not once, she was always the one to reconcile.

He walked over to the swing and started to push her gently, "Are you okay? You looked really upset back there, is there anything I can do?"

"You are already doing it, thank you, I have had a rough morning, Mary was not feeling well so I took her to the doctor, without telling the rest of the family, if they find out they will be angry with me, well my mother will be angry because I did not tell her. And then George shows up after two years and wants to pick up where he left off" she did not know why she was telling Will this, but she felt so safe.

"Is Mary okay? What did the doctor say?" she could hear he was genuinely concerned, not just being polite, he did not ask about George although she suspected knew he wanted to.

"Yes, she is just stressed, but he wants us to make sure she gets enough sleep and eats healthy, generally just take care of herself, which is why that situation back at the house freaked me out so much. Mary does not like George and I promised her I would not get involved with him again; and there he is acting all possessive and loving, I just don't need her to start worrying about me"

He was silent, she wondered if her trust was misplaced, maybe he did not want to hear her troubles, or about Mary, perhaps it was just physical.

"I think Mary knows that was not of your making, she was concerned about you, but when she saw where you were walking she visibly relaxed, she knows you well" Lizzy was amazed, in that whole situation Will had taken the time to be cognisant of how Mary was doing. She slipped off the slide and moved to stand in front of Will, right up against him, put her arms around his waist she put her head on his chest, his arms came up around her and his head rested on top of hers, she felt him gently kiss the top of her head.

"Thank you, thank you" she whispered.

"Let's go back to the others, people are going to wonder where you are" he said gently removing her hands from his waist and taking the one hand in his, her hand was tiny in his. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. She smiled up at him and he knew that he had just lost another piece of his heart.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8.

Arriving back at the barbeque hand in hand raised several eyebrows, including Georges. Lizzy did not make eye contact or look at him. She slipped her hand out of Wills and went to Mary who was talking to Charlotte, the three of them started to talk about colleges and study options, Charlotte researching on her phone and reading out them, the conversation moved and became more silly as they watch YouTube movies. It was good to hear Mary laughing, Lizzy was glad Mary decided to come, even if it was just to placate their mother.

Will was listening to the conversation between Tom and Mr Bennett who were discussing the Media house in Merryton, he heard someone clear their throat behind him. He turned around, it was George Wickham.

"How is Gia?" he asked, a small smirk on his face,

"You don't get to ask about Gia, Wickham, she is none of your business" Will feel his anger rising.

"Is that jealousy I see? Are you upset that I had Elizabeth first and your sister?" George was trying to rile him up, he knew that, it still made him angry.

"You did not have me first George, we dated that was it" Neither man had seen Lizzy walk up to them, Will was so glad she had heard that part of the conversation.

"We loved each other Lizzy, we still do, you cannot deny that. You cried when I told you I was leaving." George argued back. "I am not going to let go of you again, I know I messed up but I am here to make it right. Even your mother knows that we are meant to be together, it would break her heart if we do not reconcile, she told me how sad you were after I left, how much you missed me."

Lizzy stared at him, amazed that he was so conceited, since when had he taken anything her mother said seriously? Why was he doing this? She did not know how she felt about Will outside of the obvious physical attraction but she knew that the infatuation she had for George was definitely over.

"George, this is not the time or the place to discuss this. Please just let it be!" she just wanted him to leave her alone.

He took her hand, "Please Lizzy, let's have coffee tomorrow night and we can talk about it, don't just shut me out."

There was that voice again, she could hear it in her head "If you loved me as much as you say you do Lizzy, why won't you let me make love to you?" She pulled her hand out of his, "We can go for coffee but that is it, I am not agreeing to anything else."

The rest of the barbeque she avoided both Will and George, choosing to spend time with her sisters. Will gravitated to Charles, Jane, Theo and Louisa, and Caroline seemed to follow him everywhere he went. George went back to the grill and stood watching Lizzy all the time, she could feel his eyes on her all the time, it was not a comfortable feeling. She and Will made eye contact more than once, and in those moments it seemed to be only them there, they would smile and return to their conversations. Lizzy was glad that there was no more drama, she felt emotionally spent and just wanted to go home and sleep.

Once they got home, Lizzy tried to escape to her room, but Matilda decided it was time to remind Lizzy of her affection for George, how she saw him as her son-in-law, and why was Lizzy being so blind. Jane had Charles and that would be a great marriage, if Lizzy could just get off her high horse and see what a wonderful loving man George was.

"Mother, I am not getting back together with George, ever. Remember that he was the one that left, he told me he was leaving the day he left, despite knowing he was leaving for over three months. He also resented Mary being sick, me spending time with anyone who was not him, including my family, he alienated all of my friends, there is nothing that would entice me to date him again. Anything that was between us is over and has been for a very long time."

"Lizzy, you are not getting any younger, you have not even dated since George left so it is not like there is anyone else on the horizon. George has a steady job, he is a good looking man and he has always treated you well" Matilda was not letting this go.

"Matilda! Leave Lizzy alone now, it is her life and she must decide what she wants to do" finally her father intervened. "And I, for one, will not encourage her to date that man again, there is something seriously off about him."

Lizzy thanked him quietly and went to her room. As tired as she was she did not fall asleep easily, she knew she did not want to get back together with George, yes their relationship had been mostly good, he did treat her well but she never fully trusted him, nor did she give all of herself to him, there was always something holding her back. When she was with Will, all she wanted to do was give herself to him and had to actually hold herself back, but she did not know Will at all. Finally sleep found her, but her dreams were a repeat of the thoughts in her head.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9.

IT was 6pm, she and George had met at the Coffee Grinder in town, he had already ordered for her when she arrived, a pumpkin latte, she detested pumpkin lattes, he always ordered them for her, and he never remembered she did not drink them.

"Before you say anything Lizzy please listen to me" she did not even have time to tell him she did not want the latte when he started to speak. "I realise that I hurt you when I left, I did not know how to tell you I was leaving, and a part of me hoped that you would love me enough to follow me. But when you didn't I was devastated, so I did not contact you because I felt it would be easier for both of us. I never stopped thinking about you, or wanting you to be with me. When this job opportunity came up, I did not hesitate to take it, I hoped with all of my heart that we could sort things out between us, and move to the next stage of our relationship by getting engaged." With that he pulled out a ring box, opened it "Marry me Lizzy" he pushed the ring towards her.

At that moment she heard a loud gasp, looking up she saw Charles, Jane, Theo, Louisa, Caroline and Will standing in the doorway.

"How romantic!" Caroline gushed, "You have to say yes!"

Lizzy could see the hurt and anger in Wills face, he turned very pale, turned around and walked out. Caroline ran after him. The rest of them walked awkwardly to a table at the back.

Lizzy looked at George, he looked smug, very smug. She wondered why they had decided to come here, now. She looked over at their table, Jane mouthed "I am so sorry" to her, followed by Charles calling "Caroline!".

She looked back at George. "That is very manipulative, and No, I cannot marry you, I will not marry you. I don't love you, I doubted I ever did, I was infatuated with you but after you left the way you did I realised that I was okay without you. I did not pine for you, I had the freedom to spend time with Mary without feeling guilty, with my family, with my friends, and my studies; all the things you tried to restrict in my life."

She could see the anger in his face, briefly then he smiled at her. "I am not giving up that easily Lizzy, I will prove to you that I am the man for you"

"Don't George, really, don't. I am not going to go out with you again or marry you" she was more certain than ever.

"Give me a chance, even if we just start off as friends" he was so smooth.

"That is all we will ever be George, friends" she told him.

"I can work with friends" he was so confident. "On another note, how well do you know Will Darcy?" he had change topics so fast, she was totally taken aback.

"I met him and the rest of his friends on Friday night at the dance, he helped out at the fun run being our medic, I don't know him that well." She did not want to give more information than that.

"Please be careful Lizzy, he is not what he seems. Remember I told you that I was supposed to be fully funded to study veterinary science? Will is the reason I was not!"

"What?" Lizzy was amazed, George actually knew Will?

"Wills dad and mine were best mates; George Darcy was my godfather. After my parent passed away I went to stay with the Darcy's. Uncle George was very fond of me, and we often ended up spending weekends doing stuff, when Darcy could not make the time out of his studies to spend time with his family. After Anne, his mother died, I basically raised his sister, playing with her, spending hours on her amusement and care. When his dad died Will sent her away to boarding school, evicted me from the house and withdrew all financial support for my studies; despite his father specifically requesting that my studies be fully paid for. He trusted Will to do as he asked and did not put it in the will; but Wills jealousy over my relationships with his father and sister blinded him to everything except getting rid of me.

Last year I bumped into Georgiana; Will sister, and we renewed our friendship, she has Leukemia and I was there to support her, I wanted to raise funds for research for the disease. When Will realised that I was back in her life, he went ballistic, he had me thrown out of and barred from the hospital, he got a restraining order and accused me of using Georgiana. Nothing Georgiana or I said made any difference, her stress was off the charts so I had no choice but to back out of her life so that she could focus on getting well."

Lizzie was not sure what to think, why had Will not told her about Georgina's leukemia, especially in light of Mary? Is that why he was so miserable at the event? Why did he not trust her?

"Lizzie? Are you okay?" She shook her head, realising that George was talking her, taking advantage of her distraction he had moved around the table to sit next to her and put his arm around her.

"I am fine" she answered, trying to shake his arm off her shoulders, he slid his arm around to her waist, holding her very tightly and pulling her closer to him.

"I love you so much Lizzy, please give me a chance" he had lowered his head so that he could whisper in her ear.

The sound of the coffee shop door opening again broke through the haze and she glanced up to see Will and Caroline standing in the door again. The look on his face was unreadable, the look on Caroline's face was one of victory. The mask he had worn at the event slide across his features as he turned and headed to join the rest of the Netherfield party, with Caroline hot on his heels.

"You must be careful Lizzy, he has been such a playboy for so long, please don't think that he will change for you, he does not know how to love, he dates a woman for a few weeks, and the moment he sleeps with her, he drops her like yesterday's newspaper and moves onto the next one" Georges voice was relentless in her ear; she did not have to look up to know that Will was staring at them, she just knew that he was.

Taking some money out of her purse, she stood up, "George, we're not getting back together, as I said before, I will be your friend, nothing more" she said in a low voice as she put the money on the table and walked out of the coffee shop, her head aching from the information George just shared with her. She kept thinking about the man she experienced on Saturday and Sunday, and the other side of him she saw on Friday night and tonight. That he did not tell her about his sister being sick like Mary, or that he actually knew George. Why did she feel betrayed?


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10.

She barely remembered the drive home, or even going into the house, it was about 2am when she became aware of her surroundings and realised she was cold, hungry and sitting on her bed in the pitch dark. She realised that she had fallen for William Darcy, it was infatuation, attraction, lust but she did not know him, his inner workings. Yes, he was rich, and famous and for some woman that is all they needed to know; but she knew herself, especially after George, she was not about to offer her heart on a platter to someone who could just kick her to the curb at the drop of a hat.

She grabbed her phone, opened WhatsApp and check if Wills last online status showed anything. He was on line NOW? it was 2am.

[Hello] she typed, her heart beating so loudly in her chest, she wished she could think of something witty to say.

[Hello, I did not expect to hear from you, at all, let alone past 2am. Is everything okay?]

[No, not really]

Will had been playing the events of that evening through his mind, the picture of George holding Elizabeth so close and intimately physically hurt him, made him feel sick. He wondered if he should go and see a doctor, he could not recall ever feeling this way about another person, not even Georgiana. His phone lit up, it could not be Georgiana, they had said good night ages ago.

Elizabeth! Part of him wanted to just ignore it, but he could not, he decided to just go for open cards.

His heart skipped, she was not okay but she was messaging him, not George, not one of her sisters, him.

[You want to meet at the 24 Hour and grab a coffee? I might not be able to fix anything but I can listen] he was going out on a limb, he really had nothing to lose other than her.

[10 minutes?] she replied

[See you there in 10] He air punched, jumped up, pulled on some sweatpants, a white tee, a fleece, socks and trainers, and his beanie.

He drove up, there she was, standing just inside the 24 Hour, her arms wrapped around herself, her face pale and drawn; but there was a slight expression of hope? Anticipation?…on her face. The black leggings and over sized black sweatshirt seemed to dwarf her small body making her look more vulnerable than ever.

"Hi" he breathed, taking in her beautiful face, she looked tired. "You looked exhausted"

"I think I am; I am running on fumes. I need coffee and something to eat"

"You find a table and I will order, what do you feel like?" Will decided to take charge, just something about the way she looked, so vulnerable, made him think that she needed it right then.

"Latte no sugar and a toasted chicken mayo on white with fries" her face seemed to light up at the thought of food, he chuckled and went to order.

He placed her drink and food in front of her, she seemed to have spaced out and shook her head as he sat down. He was concerned, this was not like Sunday at the barbecue, this was more intense.

They ate in companionable silence, surreptitiously looking at each other, hoping the other would not notice. She packed up their empty cups and packaging and deposited it into the bin, returning to the table.

"I am going to get us each another Latte, and then we can decide if we are going to talk here, in the car, back at Charlies or at your place, or anywhere else you want to go to. My ears are all yours for the next few hours." She smiled, and walked with him to the counter.

As they walked out of the 24 Hour, she said "Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere away from this" sweeping her hands to encompass Merryton.

"Sure, where do you want to go?"

"I will give you directions, it's hard to explain without sounding dodge" she smiled shyly, and slid into the passenger seat in his car.

They had been driving for thirty minutes, not talking, she had been concentrating on the road.

"Turn left here" she said suddenly. They had left the town quite a while back and were literally in the mountains. He turned down a well maintained dirt road, trees on either side of the road. They drove deeper into the forested area.

"Is this the part when I start getting concerned that you might have concealed a large knife or chain saw on your person?" he said to lighten the mood.

"It's a bit late to start worrying about that" she snickered back at him.

The road forked, "Turn right here and park over there on the right" she indicated with her hand, it was so dark he almost missed it.

"Damn, I forgot how dark it can get up here" she cried out, "We are going to have to be careful"

"Bears?" he asked, smiling in the dark.

"Tree roots" she was laughing at him.

They got out the car, he walked around to her side and she slipped her small hand into his, and started walking further into the woods. He wanted to ask if she was sure she knew where she was going but that would have been insulting, so he just held her hand and followed.

"There are stairs here" she suddenly said after they had walked a short while, she climbed up the stairs, her hand still in his, at that point the clouds moved out from in front of the moon and he could see a cabin in front of them. It was quite big, looked like it was made of wood and Elizabeth had obviously been here before.

She felt around the window box, exclaimed "Yippee" softly and then proceeded to unlock and open the door. He was greeted with the smell of old smoky fire, wood and something else, very pleasant.

She let go of his hand and moved deeper into the dark cabin, feeling around. A few minutes later he heard a match strike and she was lit up, as she started lighting lamps around the cabin.

"Get a fire started" she instructed pointing towards the fireplace that had just become visible as she lit the two lamps flanking it. There was a huge pile of wood next to the fire place and the matches were in her outstretch palm. "There is kindling in the grate"

As he got the fire started, she came out of a doorway carrying a kettle which she hung on a hook above the fire, and she pulled the fire guard in front of the blaze. She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the big soft couch in front of the fire.

They sat next to each other, centimeters between them, in companionable silence. Neither one feeling any pressure to speak or break the silence until the kettle started to boil, and the water splashing out made the fire hiss. He got up and took the now scolding hot kettle off the fire, making use of the rather large oven mitts he found on the floor next to the fire place, and placed it a heat proof mat on the table behind the couch. Whilst Lizzy disappear back into the same dark room as before, reappearing with cups, and some containers.

"There is no fresh milk so we will have to do with UHT milk" she announced

"I am fine with that" Will smiled at her "What are we having tea or coffee?"

"Hot Chocolate" she replied, sounding joyful and happy.

He watched as she prepared their drinks, gratefully taking his as she handed it to him and they returned to the couch. Drinking their hot chocolate and staring into the fire.

She placed her empty cup on the floor "Thank you for being there for me Will"

"Always, and it's a pleasure Lizzy" he picked up her cup and place it on the table, along with his own.

She turned to face him, her legs curled up under her, at some stage she had removed her trainers and only had socks on her feet. Her eyes seemed to search his face for something, he was not too sure if he should say something, but his instinct was to just wait for her.

"I was not sure if you would respond to me when I messaged you earlier" her voice was low and filled with emotion, the shadows from the fire making it hard for him to make out her expression.

"You looked so angry when you saw me with George at the Grinder, I was not sure what to think. And then after I heard what George had to say about you, I was even less sure of what to think. I totally zoned out when I got home, just mulling over what he said and what I knew about you, which in all honesty is not much at all. When I saw you on line I decided that the only way to get answers was to talk to you directly, so I was relieved when you agreed to meet"

She looked directly at him, her anxiety very obvious in her expression. He just nodded, encouraging her to carry on.

"He told me that his father and yours were best friends, your father was his godfather and when his parents died he stayed with your family. He spent a lot of time with your father because you were too busy studying to spend any time with your family. After your mother died he took over raising your sister, when your dad died you sent her away to boarding school, evicted him from your home; and counter to your father's wishes withdrew all financial aid for his studying further, all because of your jealousy. "She watched his face turn to stone, even worse than at the event. His jaw clenched but he did not say anything. His eyes watched her face, the only thing not hard, they were soft, and hurt, very hurt.

"He said that when your sister was diagnosed he was there to support her, he was fund raising for cancer research, but you had him thrown out of the hospital and had a restraining order taken out against him, you accused him raising money on false pretenses, that he had to leave her because she was so stressed out" She did not think the hurt in his eyes could get worse but it did, and it looked as if he was going to cry; her heart felt as if it was in a vice, but she had to go on.

"He said that you do not know how to love, you only date girls until they sleep with you and then you move on." Her voice had gotten quieter and quieter as she told the last part of Georges story. Her eyes and head had dropped to look at her la,she was wringing her hands, dreading his reaction.

"Lizzy, I am going to ask you to trust me, and in return I am going to trust you" His voice was low, and serious, His eyes searched her face this time.

"Of course Will, I would not intentionally betray you"

"The first part of what he said is true" he started, pausing as he heard her drawing her breath in. "but he is wrong about my studying, my father did not want me to be distracted, he pushed me to study hard, it was his biggest dream to see me become a doctor, but he was also very possessive about us spending time as a family, and this excluded George; on the nights George was out doing other things my family would gather for supper and just catch up, even tiny Georgiana; this happened at least once a week, and my father insisted they continued after mom died, I would have lost my mind if it were not for those nights. Every night after everyone else had gone to sleep he would come to my room and we would talk about our day, about my studies, his dreams for me, and George, my father found him amusing, so different to Mr Wickham senior, but he was not blinded to some of Georges less desirable behaviours, the drinking, drugs, gambling and women. My father tried to steer him right but whiling showing my father the good son routine, he was still carrying on the same behind his back, and my father was very aware of this.

After bailing George out of jail for the third time for possession, my father gave him a choice – clean up his act and my father would support him in any career he wanted, or carry on his path of destruction and my father would withdraw all support. George promised to change and do the right thing, and for a while he seemed to turn his life around.

My mother never wanted George around Georgiana, she never said why but she was never comfortable with him staying with us, but after she died George seemed to really try hard to make friends with Georgiana, playing dolls with her, reading to her, watching endless Barbie movies, my father was grateful, he did not know how to cope with my mom's death, me and my sister.

Then my father had his heart attack, George and I were with him when it happened, we were about to go to a business dinner when he got a phone call, during the phone call he looked up at George, for the rest of the phone call he kept his eyes on George, he ended the call and started to speak to George, he told him that he would not be taken for a fool, there would be no second chances this time around, he would not bail him out of jail or sponsor his lifestyle anymore. I have never seen my father that angry before, and then the heart attack started. I tried to save him, I did CPR right up until the paramedics took over, I used every bit of medical knowledge I had but it was not enough, he died right there in front of us. The next day George started to taunt me about all my studies amounting to nothing, I could not even save my own father, he just went on and on and on.

Two days later, I came home early from university and I found George taking photos of my sister in provocative poses, the kind you would see in an adult porn magazine, all she had on was a small pair of knickers, she was 10 years old and so innocent. I threw him out of the house immediately. In accordance with my father's wishes, I transferred $500 000,00 into his account and ended the relationship there and then. It would cover his veterinary studies and accommodation." Will was crying at this stage, and so was Lizzy, she had reached out to hold his hands and their tears were falling onto their joined hands. "Georgiana does not remember any of that, she blacked it out and I did not have the heart to tell her, and that was my biggest mistake. I let her down."

"I thought that was the last of it, I finished my medical degree and qualified but my heart was not in it. I had the family business to fall back on, and stepped up into my father's shoes. But then Georgiana was diagnosed with leukemia, and somehow he found out, we tried really hard to keep it out of the press, we actually created false news that she was undergoing plastic surgery which is apparently the thing in our circle of acquaintances. I was contacted by one of our clients who had been approached by a James Wickman, who claimed to work for the fund raising arm of Pemberley Corp, my company, looking for sponsorship towards cancer research in the name of Georgiana Darcy; it did not take long for me to figure out it was George. I spoke to Georgiana who told me that he had started visiting her, because I chose to not tell her what he did before she had no reason to not trust him. So she accepted him as a friend. He turned on the charm and tried to make her fall in love with him, luckily she was so wiped out from the treatment that she did not have the energy to engage emotionally. He also kept trying to derail her treatment, hoping from one miracle cure to another, telling her how the doctors treatment was poison. He convinced her that he wanted to raise funds towards research, and got her sign documents giving him authority to raise funds on her behalf. He also managed to get our clients list, I only figured out afterwards that he had seduced one of our secretaries, Jenny Young, and convinced her to give him a client list. She died from an overdose two weeks before he reappeared in Georgiana life. I had to contact all of our clients to find out who he had approached, and how much they had donated, I reported him to the authorities who took the investigation further, and based on that I got the restraining order. Georgiana was so stress out and distressed about the whole thing her treatment took a great set back and we had to basically start all over again, even now she is still physically weakened, and emotionally so wary of people. She does not want me telling people about her illness, or what he did to her as child or adult."

Lizzy was sobbing, her whole body was wracked by the sobs, she could not imagine anyone going through what Will and his sister had been through, at the hands of just one person. She felt his arms go around her, he lifted her up onto his lap and cradled her there, rocking and soothing her, little kisses on the top of her head. She got quieter and calmer, they sat there, him just holding her.

"Tell me about you and George" he asked, gently, hoping she would trust him enough to share her heart.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11.

"I met George running, we crashed into each other on the trail, he asked for my number and we started dating. It was almost perfect in the beginning, my family seemed to like him, my friends seemed to like him but as we became more serious my father and Mary started withdrawing whenever he was around, both of them said at one stage or another that they did not fully trust him. Some of my friends started getting angry at how he manipulated me, although I did not see that until after we broke up. He did not want me spending time at the hospital with Mary, especially if he was not working; then he stopped wanting to spend time with my family and then my friends. After a year he started pressurising me to have sex, I thought I loved him but I just did not could not bring myself to go that final step. He got really angry about it at times, accusing me of not loving him enough, which just made me more resolved to not sleep with him" Wills heart swelled, even though she had had a relationship with George, she had not had sex with him, he wondered if she had ever had sex.

"I can only give my virginity once, so I need to be really sure that it is the right person and my heart will know when it is right." she said, almost as if she read his mind.

"Why did you break up?" he wanted to know how it ended, why George seemed to think he could get her back.

"Mary got sick, and our whole family made a decision to put her first, she was a typical middle child and we all felt so guilty that she had been so forgotten in the midst of our huge family. I spent less time with George, and this along with the fact that I would not sleep with him made him angry and resentful. He was never nice to Mary, but he seemed to get worse after she got sick. Then one day he told me he was leaving the next day, he had gotten a great job offer that he could not turn down. Yesterday he told me that he hoped I would follow him, but he did not make contact once after he left, no phone calls, sms'es, WhatsApp, letters …nothing, he just left and that was it. I was so wrapped up in Mary I did not have time to think about him or missing him and then one day I realised that I did not miss him. I did not miss him because I did not really love him."

She lifted her head to look at him, offering him a small little smile to assure him that she was okay, her eyes dropped to his lips, and then up to his eyes, his actions mirrored hers; he lowered his head until their lips met and she felt a warmth flash through her body, from her lips to her toes, her lips parted and his tongue moved into to explore, her tongue joined the exploration

She moved her hands around his neck pulling him close to her, he lay back and pulled her on top of him, his arms around her and his hands on her back. He pulled away at the point where she thought she was about to burst into flames, the kiss was so intense, he looked deep into her eyes, "You have no idea how what you do to me, how you have invaded my thoughts and dreams. No one person has ever affect me like this."

She did not reply, what could she say, she felt the same way and it scared her, it frightened her to the core of her being. She dropped her face to his, kissing his eyes, cheeks and finally his lips. She drew back "I feel the same way, and it frightens me, I am not used to feeling like this about anyone".

"You don't have to be afraid Lizzy, I would never hurt you, you are too precious to me" he pulled her closer to him, hugging her firmly. She rested her head on his chest, suddenly aware that she was actually lying on top of him, feeling his hard chest, the warmth of his body, she was even more aware of his state of arousal, this was quickly followed by the realization that despite the physical manifestation of his body, he had again not done anything inappropriate at all, no wandering hands, no trying to remove her clothing, no begging her to let him touch her.

She leveraged herself up on her arms, and looked at his face, "What?" he said starting to feel uncomfortable under her stare.'' She sat up, straddling him across his stomach, trying not to rub against him and make it worse for him,

"You are so different to any other man I have ever known." she said still looking at him.

"How do you mean?"

"Most men would have at least tried to get my top off, or their hands under my top" she said, still maintaining eye contact, even though she was starting to blush.

He smiled, "You are worth so much more than that, I want to know so much about you, I want to see photos of you growing up, hear stories about what you did as a child, how you decided to become a lawyer. You are as beautiful and fierce on the insides as you are on the outside, and I know that there are so many more hidden depths to who you are. Your beautiful perfect body, is just a small part of the whole package"

It was official, she was in love, and well on her way to loving him with all of her being. She started, realising that despite all of her defenses and walls, here was a man who was prepared to get to know her, the real her and cherish her for all of it. She lowered herself back onto his chest, a soft giggle coming out of her. He rolled them over so that he was on top of her, she looked up, he was smiling at her, a soft gentle and beautiful smile "That is not nice, giggling at me", the seriousness of his words belied by the gentle humour in his voice.

"I am happy" she simply said.

He lowered his head and kissed her again, this time it was slow and searching, working up into something a lot more passionate and fiery, as she returned his affections with the power of her own. She moved her hands down and under his shirt and vest, running them over the plans of his chest, feeling the muscles and warmth, feeling his breathing coming quicker and quicker. As the kiss ended she looked up into his eyes, they had turned almost black with passion, "You are wicked" he breathed out, grabbing her hands with his own and pulling them out of his shirt. "I only have so much restraint, I am not a saint" Turning them onto their sides so that his back was to the outside of the couch, he pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and threw it over them, pulling her closer to him, he kissed her forehead, "We could both do with some sleep"

She fell asleep within minutes and he was not far behind. Neither of them aware of a pair of eyes watching them through a window, or a shadowy figure making its way back to the road.

**A huge thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review and encourage me, a special thank you for those who point out continuity discrepancies, please keep them coming. This is a first for me, and I am loving it, and loving each of you favouriting and following this story. (I know favouriting is not a real word, but we will use it anyway :-). Please do not be shy to offer opinions and corrections, it is all part of the learning curve. **


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12.

She woke up slowly, becoming aware that it was light outside, and that it was raining, but she was not cold, she snuggled down, her back warmed by the person lying behind her, she realised that she must have turned over in her sleep, she was spooning against Will, who was snoring softly behind her, his hand on her hip. She drifted off to sleep again.

Will had woken up three or four time in the night, saying a grateful prayer for the small body lying in front of him, and falling back asleep again. He could not remember when last he just slept, or could just fall asleep again after waking, he did not think too much about it, relishing the warmth and the embrace of the sleep that claimed him again.

He woke again feeling her stir next to him, becoming aware that he was extremely aroused, more so than normally, her bum was right up against his hard on and every time she moved it was excruciatingly and exquisitely painful. He tried moving back, but she moved with him and he was in danger of falling off the couch if he moved back any more.

He tried to move her forward, and she moaned in her sleep, making him harden even more. He slid out of the blanket to stand on the floor, walking around the cabin to discover where the bathroom was. He found four bedrooms deeper in the cabin, and finally a bathroom. After a pee he felt better, he rinsed his face and washed his mouth with the toothpaste he found in the cabinet. Returning to the living area, he found her sitting on the couch with the blanket wrapped around her, adorably befuddled, looking up at him with a pout

"It's cold without you" she whined "For that you need to make us something to drink" she followed this with a smile, which he returned with one of his own.

He restarted the fire which had burnt down whilst they were sleeping, filled the kettle and placed it over the flames, he then went into what he now knew to be the kitchen and prepared two cups with coffee, and sugar, took the cups and milk through to the living area. He returned to the kitchen and found a tin of cookies which seemed 'fresh-ish'. These he dropped into Lizzy's lap and sat down next to her, pulled her onto his lap, she draped the blanket around the two of them and opened the tin. Unexpectedly she started to feed him one of the cookies, he started to laugh and she joined in, he was not laughing for any specific reason he was just so happy, and content; and he realised that he felt safe, emotionally safe. He stopped laughing and held her close, kissing her cheek and stroking her arm, they sat like that until they heard the kettle boiling. He deposited her back on the couch and went to make their coffee.

Once they had finished their coffee and Lizzy had done her ablutions, they sat and talked about random things, their jobs, families, school years, growing up, there was no format they just talked. At one stage they realised that it was getting dark again, Lizzy's face was filled with concern "I did not tell anyone where I was going, or that I was going at all, and there is no cell phone reception up here. We are going to need to go back down, and I would rather just spend another night here, alone with you.'

"I also did not tell anyone where I was going. There is nothing more I would like than to stay here with you longer but I think the temptation will be too much for me, you have no idea the effect you are having on me" he was blushing as he admitted this to her.

She looked at him, her face pensive, he could see she wanted to ask him something, but was not sure how. "Just ask" he said

"How many women have you slept with? I know I don't have a right to ask you and you are fully within your rights to tell me to bugger off" she asked, her face going blood red.

"None, Lizzy. I have never had sex with anyone. My mother, and then my father, was very open about sex, and the difference between casual sex and a deep sexual connection, my father always regretting not waiting, and my mother did not regret waiting. They did not wait until marriage but they always knew that they were meant for each other. Their love for each other has formed how I feel about women, sex and relationships. It is why none of my relationships have lasted, I have never felt enough for them to have sex. And I am not just referring to penetrative sex, anything happening below the waist line…is for that one person." He was looking straight into her eyes as he said this, she did not doubt the truth of what he was saying, she knew in her heart of hearts that he was being honest.

She remembered how George said that he could accept not going all the way, but surely she could make allowances for heavy petting and oral sex, because it would still keep her virginity. Hearing Will voice her exact thoughts and feelings made her happy, and it scared her because she was feeling so vulnerable.

"We need to get going before they send search parties out Lizzy, we can go for dinner and continue this conversation' He stood up and let her slide her feet to the floor, she immediately put her feet on his after they touched the ice cold floor, drawing her breath in at the shock of the cold. He picked her up and put her on the couch, handed her her trainers and started to put his own on.

They cleaned up the cabin, returning everything to its place. They decided to come back to the cabin the next day and clean out the fire place, agreeing to arrange an outing with their friends just to make sure they were not tempted.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13.

As they stepped onto the veranda of the cabin Will noticed that there were muddy foot prints that branched off from their original prints, these prints lead to the window, through which one could see the living area, where he and Lizzy had spent their time.

"Did you come outside last night or this morning?" he asked, puzzled by the prints.

"No, it was too cold" she looked to where he was looking. "That is odd, no-one comes up here except my family and some of our friends."

"Perhaps someone thought to check on us?" he wondered out loud.

"This is not the first place anyone would think to look for us, they don't know we are together." She thought for a bit "Except maybe Mary" and she smiled.

"A random hiker?" he really did not like the unexplained footprints, the thought that someone could have been watching them was disturbing.

"Possibly, not that many people hike out this way but stranger things have happened. I don't like the idea that they were spying on us" she shuddered as she said this.

"Come, we need to go. There is no use us worrying about something we cannot solve right now, perhaps someone will mention they came looking for us or something" Will took her hand and they walked back to the car.

The drive into town started out in silence, Lizzy had been thinking about George, all the things that Will had told her, she was deeply concerned.

"You know you can just ask me." Will said without taking his eyes off the road. "I don't think there is any I can't tell you."

"George…why is he not in jail? You have more than enough to charge him with, starting with the photos; followed by the fraud and manipulation of Georgiana whilst she is sick. How could you allow him to roam free, possibly repeating his behaviour with others, when it is in your power to do something about it?" she was not angry, her voice was very matter of fact.

"The photograph incident happened so soon after my father's death, I was still reeling from not being able to save him, the fact that he was actually dead, I was suddenly responsible for my sister, and Darcy Corp; and there was someone as close as a brother taking advantage of my sister. There was a sort of denial, until at least a week after it happened. At which point I started to look for the camera, which incidentally was my fathers, it was missing. Because his death was natural causes, the reading of the will took place quite quickly, that he had not changed his will meant that he believed that George was trying to change his ways and what I heard in that last telephone conversation was not enough to deny him the portion my father willed to him. My lawyers said they would have to hear the other side of the conversation but up till that point my father showed no indication of revoking his support for George. George had also disappeared, when I tried to contact him about the camera his service provider said that number was not in service. All I had for him was his banking details, which he changed immediately after his inheritance was transferred. I really, naively, believed that I was shot of him." His explanation although sound sounded weak in his own ears, he could only imagine how little Lizzy must think of him now.

"Naïve maybe but it does speak to your willingness to think better of him than you should have, at that stage" Lizzy commented "and the fraud, and Georgiana?"

"When everything came to light, Georgiana was at her worst with regards to the leukaemia, the treatment wiped her out, in multiple ways, and she begged that I not take it further, she did not have to want to deal with court cases, and the publicity that would come along with that, she was already consumed with guilt for having believed him, my own guilt at not tell her what he was really like sooner, made me more than willing to ease her pain." Will was not feeling proud of himself, but he felt on this score he would do the same thing again to save his sister anymore pain. "I have hired a PI to keep tabs on Wickham, he is supposed to report to me in two weeks' time, but he should have reported Georges move to Merryton, our agreement is a general month report of where Wickham goes and who he meets, but if something major happens he is to let me know immediately, and I consider a relocation quite major. I will have to ask my secretary to follow up with him."

"Why did you not tell me about Georgiana and her leukaemia? Especially after finding out about Mary. Don't you trust me?" Lizzy sounded said

"I was actually waiting for the right moment, and most of the time I felt that if I mentioned it I would be like Caroline looking for attention, woe is me, my sister is also sick; that and the insane need to keep my personal life…personal, to not reveal any weaknesses."

"Until you can over dress for every occasion, included a barbeque, you could never be a convincing Caroline." Lizzy teased him, the mood in the car lifted as they neared their destination.

She directed him to her house, he drew up and pulled her towards him, kissing her soundly on the mouth.

"Message me later when you are free, and we can make arrangements for tonight; I don't have anything planned for the rest of the day outside of a nap" he said as she made to get out of the car.

"Later Will. Thank you so much for last night, I am looking forward to see you again later" she blew him a kiss and walked into her house.

He drove back to Netherfield, happy with where he and Lizzy were at. They had cleared the air, and tonight they could discuss how they feel about each other, and make their relationship official. He hoped she felt the same way he did, he was pretty sure she did but did not want to assume anything.


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14.

"Where have you been? You inconsiderate child, we have been worried sick, you were not in your room, no-one knew where you were!" Her mother sounded like a fishwife, screaming at her the moment she opened the door.

"Mother, she was with Will, like I said" Lizzy heard Marys quiet voice, looking at her sister.

"I phoned Jane and she said Will was also MIA." Mary looked happy as she said that.

"She should be focussing on George, he wants to marry her." Matilda was like a dog with a bone.

"I seriously doubt that' her father replied to her mother, "That boy has no intentions of marrying Lizzy, he just wants to own her, possess her. He does not respect her."

"Of course he does, he has been here every day since the barbeque waiting to talk to her, telling me how much he loves her." Her mother was adamant.

"Mother, I am not going to go out with, get engage to or marry George. It is not up for discussion or debate." Lizzy turned and went upstairs, wanting nothing more than to sleep. She could hear her mother going hysterical about how ungrateful Lizzy was, and as a mother all she wanted was happiness for her children, for her girls to get married.

She closed her bedroom door and sank down onto her bed, then she took off all her clothes and slid under her duvet. Within minutes she was asleep.

She woke up with a shock, there was someone in the bed with her, she could feel a penis pushing against her butt, she leapt up screaming, turning to her bed, George!

"What are you doing in my room? In my bed?" she yelled, grabbing her robe and putting it on.

"Your mom let me in, she said you were up in your room and I could come up. I saw you sleeping so I decided to climb in with you, I did not think you would mind." He smirked at her.

Her door flew open; Mary, Kitty, Lydia and her mother burst into her room.

"What were you thinking?" she yelled at her mother, "Sending him up to my room, you knew I was sleeping!"

"You are being unreasonable Lizzy, he loves you, you need to give him a chance" her mother yelled back.

"He tried to rape me Mother, he was trying to have sex with me whilst I was sleeping!" Lizzy was so angry, she felt so violated.

"Don't be silly Lizzy, George would not do that" her mother really did not believe her.

Lizzy grabbed the duvet and pulled it off him, he did not have time to react and was lying there stark naked, his arousal out on display. She watched her sisters look away, except Lydia, who looked as if she was about to burst out laughing.

"Did he walk into the house naked mother? If he did not intend having sex with me whilst I was sleeping why is he naked and ready for action?" She demanded answers from her mother.

George was scrambling for his clothes, just then her father walked into the room.

"What on earth is going on here?" he demanded, looking at the half naked George trying to get the rest of his clothing on.

"Mother let him in, and allowed him up to my room, where he tried to have sex with me whilst I was sleeping!" her anger was immeasurable.

"He loves her, he would never force himself on her." her mother continued to defend her actions and George.

"George, get out of my house, you are not welcome here. I do not care what my wife gave you permission to do, you do not come into my house and rape my sleeping daughter. If you cannot show her a modicum of respect you do not deserve to be in her life or to date her." Her father was livid

"As for you, I am not going to repeat myself, you will not force Lizzy to date anyone, you do not force George onto her, she is old enough to decide who she wants to date, and if last night is anything to go by she had made her decision, and you will respect that. She does not have to marry, or date, for that matter, she decides what she is going to do with her life, not you and not me" he glared at his wife, who actually looked a bit ashamed.

"I am sorry" said George, smirking at Lizzy as he walked out.

"Please can I have some time to myself" Lizzy asked her family still in her room. They all looked a bit embarrassed and left. Mary rubbed her arm sympathetically as she left.

She did not know what a panic attack felt like but she hazarded a guess that she was minutes away from one.

[Will, are you awake?]

She waited for his reply, she could not help the sinking feeling in her stomach when she thought about what had just happened.

[Lizzy, is everything okay?] he replied about 10 minutes later.

[No. Please can we meet?]

[Sure, 24 Hour?]

[No, I will come to Netherfield, if that is okay with you?]

[Yes, of course, come around the back, I think you know the way. That way we can avoid Caroline.]

She smiled at his last message, the last person she wanted to see, other than George, was Caroline.

[Be there in 10] she put on her blue jeans, a black cowl neck sweater and black boots, grabbed her keys and bag and left the house, on her way out she told Mary she was going to Netherfield, and not to expect her back for a while. Mary just smiled, she was firmly in Wills corner.


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15.

He stood in the garden watching her pull her car around, get out and walk towards him. Again struck by her ethereal beauty, he put his hands on her waist and kissed her.

"Hi" he said breathlessly as their kiss ended.

"Hi, yourself" she responded, but her smile did not reach her eyes.

"What happened? You were so happy when I left you" he asked

"Well perhaps you should not have left me…" she started but then she started to sob.

He put his arms around her, pulling her into his shoulder, rubbing her back, murmuring comforting words. He turned and guided her into the house, up the old servant's stairs to his room. Luckily they did not meet anyone on the way.

She pulled out of his arms and went into the en suite to wash her face. Coming back into the room, she looked around. A huge four poster bed stood against the wall facing French doors that opened onto a balcony. The bed had thick blue velvet curtains that could be closed around the bed, a thick royal blue warm looking duvet, possibly down? Four plush pillows with a blue and white paisley covers, a fluffy white blanket was folded at the foot of the bed. There were pedestals on each side of the bed with lamps and a wardrobe stood at one end of the room. The floor was covered with a plush deep blue carpet, the whole room looked and reeked of man, her man, Will.

She looked at him, standing there waiting for her, she walked over, slipped her hand into his and pulled him to the bed. They sat down and she scrambled onto the bed, pulling the white blanket over herself as she lay on the pillow. He lay next to her on his side, his hand running up and down her arm outside the blanket, she was cold to the touch and she just looked so sad.

"What happened Lizzy?" he asked

"George Wickham" she said, sucking her breath in, holding back more sobs. She took a few deep breaths. When I got home I went to bed, because I was alone I was naked. When I woke up George was in the bed behind me, trying to…. trying to have sex with me, while he thought I was sleeping." A few more sobs escaped her lips, "My mother let him in and told him to go to my room. My own mother sent my ex-boyfriend up to my room to rape me' her sobs were coming faster and faster, he pulled her closer to him, holding her to his chest. "He was going to have sex with me Will, I would have lost my virginity in my sleep, and all my mother can care about is that he said he wants to marry me, she does not care that he almost violated me, she does not care that I don't want him."

He was in a rage, but she needed him to comfort her, all he wanted to do was hunt Wickham down and make him pay. Her sobs were like little knives being stabbed into his heart, she was desolate. He continued to murmur words of comfort to her, rubbing her back, planting little kisses on her hair. She was calming down, her body almost merging with his she was so close to him.

Her sobs stopped, she looked up into his face "You don't blame me do you?" He looked at her in surprise, why on earth would she think that?  
"No, never Lizzy. This is George we are talking about; this is just the kind of thing he would do. This is not your fault at all. Your mothers maybe, but definitely Georges. Please banish that thought from your mind."

"I could not bear you thinking that somehow I wanted it" she was still shaking a bit when she said that.

"My silly angel" he drew her back into his embrace. "I love you too much to think that"

She froze, did he really just say that.. he loves her? She felt him start to shake, she pulled away in fright, not knowing what was wrong.

He was laughing, deep rich belly aching laughter. She stared, he looked so handsome when he was laughing like that. He looked at her, directly into her eyes.

"Yes, I really said that, I love you, I do and just the thought of it makes me happy. Happier than I have been in a long time. Wait…why are you crying?" His hand came up to her face, his thumb wiping away her tears "Lizzy, what is wrong? I did not mean to upset you, I know we have not known each other long, but it is true, I really do love you and it is just going to grow more from here on out. Please Lizzy don't cry"

"I am happy, really. I did not expect you to say that, to love me…to love me the way I love you" her green eyes were filled with her tears but she was smiling, then she was kissing him all over his face, raining kissed all over his face. He was laughing, holding her against him and she continued to kiss him.

She pulled away from him "I need to report Wickham, for sexual assault, it is going to be his word against mine. My mother let him in and 'invited' him to my bedroom, but I was asleep and my whole family can testify to me not wanting him. It is going to be humiliating." She realised the enormity of what had happened, and what she needed to do. "I actually understand why you haven't, especially without the pictures, it is your word against his, Georgiana has blocked it out, and even if she could have testified, she is a minor and George could swing it around."

"I will go with you, every step of the way, I will be there." Will promised her.

They had been lying there for a while, not talking just holding each other, the white blanket covering them. Lizzy was just at the point of falling asleep, when the door of the room flew open, Caroline burst in

"Will, we need to talk, seriously talk about us."

Lizzy and Will shot up, staring at Caroline in amazement.

"What is she doing here? In your bed?" Caroline shrieked and launched herself at Lizzy, falling across Will to grab a handful of Lizzy's hair, but due to the lack of length just ended up scratching her scalp. Will bodily lifted her off himself and Lizzy, whilst Lizzy felt to see what damage Caroline had inflicted. Will then shoved Caroline away from them, getting off the bed.

"Get out Caroline, just get out. Lizzy is my girlfriend, she belongs here with me, in my bed, at my side and in my life. You are Charles sister, I own you nothing, you are not my girlfriend, you are barely even a friend; when you look at me you see my money, my property and the status I could bring you if I were ever delusional enough to date you. You don't know me; you have no interest in knowing me. You only know what I can do for you. Now Get Out!" Wills voice was dangerously low, he was not shouting, but he was shaking with anger.

Caroline backed out of the room, fear very evident in her eyes, she uttered a sob as she turned and ran from the room.

"What is going on?" Charles voice could be heard from the hallway, and then he appeared in the door way. "Hi Lizzy, it's good to see you" he smiled, but then he noticed the anger on Wills face and how upset Lizzy was.

"Lizzy? Is Lizzy here?' Jane appeared behind Charles, "What's wrong Lizzy?" Jane moved over to sit on the other side of her sister, taking her hand, concern all over her face.

"Caroline, Caroline happened. She burst in here, saw Lizzy and attacked her. I know she is your sister Charles, but this time she has gone too far. I have never led her on, I never promised her anything more than friendship." Will felt that he just had to tell Charles, it was time Charles took control of his crazy sister.

"I am so sorry Lizzy, Will" Charles was shocked, he knew his sister was a bit off but this was a new one for her.

All of a sudden the room was filled with laughter, Will, Jane and Charles looked at Lizzy who was sitting on the bed laughing. Her eyes on Will, as her laughter just spilled out of her.

"You love me, Will Darcy loves me" as more laughter rang through the room

"Yes, ma'am I sure do" said Will starting to laugh with her.

Charles and Jane first just looked at them but also started to laugh with them, there was a private happiness that they shared with two people they loved the most.


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 17

The four of them decided to go to the Grill Room for supper, inviting Theo and Louisa to join them. Charles had already told them what happened with Caroline, who had locked herself in her room, after a very serious conversation with Charles, which resulted in him ducking flying objects as he left her room.

They were all relax, chatting about random things, each couple focused on their partner more than the other people at the table, and no-one minded. After they had finished eating, and were waiting for dessert Lizzy and Will proposed a day up at the Cabin, with a sleepover returning to town after breakfast. The other couples were keen; it was agreed that they would do it the following day. Lizzy said she would invite Mary, who would probably say no, but she wanted Mary to know she was wanted. Louisa, Jane and Theo all said they hoped that Mary would come with them.

Lizzy felt content, and after she and Will had shared a chocolate mud pie, she was ready to sleep but she did not want to go back home.

"Lizzy, are you going home tonight?" Jane asked "I want to stay at Netherfield, with Charles"

Lizzy was surprised, she knew that Jane, like herself was waiting for the right guy, and this indicated that she felt that the right guy was Charles.

"I don't know; I don't want to go home after what happened earlier. I can't trust mother and I definitely cannot trust George." Lizzy was being honest, not only with her sister but with herself.

"We have more than enough rooms at Netherfield Lizzy" said Charles "You are more than welcome to stay over"

"Okay, I will go home and get my stuff." Lizzy felt better, "Will, can you come with me, to my house, while I get my stuff?"

"Of course, you did not need to ask, I was coming with regardless." He kissed her neck, snuggling close to her.

"You two are so cute!" Louisa exclaimed, "I am so glad you found each other, you are well suited."

Theo nodded in agreement, Jane and Charles just smiled at them, they had already shared their approval of the relationship earlier.

They discussed what would be needed for the stay at the cabin, Jane set up lists, a WhatsApp group and messaged everyone what they needed to do. Her natural organisation skills coming to the fore. They walked out to their cars agreeing to meet back at Netherfield once Lizzy had gotten her stuff.

Lizzy was not looking forward to seeing her mother again, but as she entered the house, her mother quietly greeted her, not making eye contact. Lizzy informed her that she was going to spend the night at Netherfield, and was just getting some stuff. Her mother nodded in acknowledgement but did not say anything.

Lizzy and Will went up to her room where she packed a small bag. Not looking at her bed, afraid of the memories that would come with that.

"It's okay Lizzy, someone has stripped the bed" Will said softly. His arms coming around her from the back, pulling her back to his chest. Together they looked at the bed, which presumably her sisters, one of them, had stripped down. Lying on the bare pillow was a bar of chocolate and a note.

"Mary" Lizzy whispered with a smile, picking up the note.

Lizzy my love, Do not let him steal your joy, your happy – he is not worth it. Love M

She packed the chocolate into her bag and pinned the note onto her vanity.

"Let's go" she said taking Wills hand, leading him down stairs heading to the door.

"Lizzy?" she heard her father call her name

"Yes Dad?" she was grateful that her dad had supported her, not just today but always when her mom was trying to bend her will.

Her father looked at her, at Will, at their joined hands. "Be safe my darling" and he kissed her cheek. "Look after her, she is precious to me" he said to Will.

"Yes sir, she is precious to me too" Will knew that there was no way to convince her dad that he would look after her with his life.

They left the house and headed straight to Netherfield. This time going in the front door, and after dropping her bag in Wills room, they met up with Jane, Charles, Theo and Louisa in the lounge, each couple cuddled up on a couch, leaving the third couch for Will and Lizzy. A fire was burning in the large fire place, warming the room. They decided against playing games or watching a movie, choosing instead to just sit and chat, getting to know each other better. Lizzy felt so close to the two other couples, something that had never happened to her before. She and George had never double dated or gotten together with another couple privately or socially. And prior to George she had not had a serious relationship.

Each on started yawning, and they decided it was time to call it a day. Louisa made sure all the dirty cups and glasses were returned to the kitchen, Charles and Theo made the fire safe and put the guard in place.

The fire had warmed most of the big house, which considering the chill that had set in was something everyone appreciated.

"Which room would you like to sleep in Lizzy?" Will asked as they made their way up the stairs.

"Your room" she answered without hesitation.

"Is that wise Lizzy? I already told you how much of a temptation you are." He wanted her to sleep in his room but he felt she had to be aware of where things could go.

She looked up at him "Wise, probably not. But it is what I want"

They took turns in the bathroom getting ready for bed. For Lizzy sake, he put on pyjama bottoms, rather than sleep naked as he usually did. Lizzy wore a two-piece boy short/racer back top combo also foregoing sleeping naked, the memory of George still fresh. She jumped under the bedding, cuddling up to him, her arm around his waist, her head on his shoulder. Lying next to him made her feel so tiny, she liked it, she did not feel vulnerable, she felt protected.

He lifted himself onto his elbow, looking at her, she smiled at him and he moved towards her, his lips capturing hers as his hands slid around her waist to pull her closer. Almost immediately her tongue was seeking his, exploring his mouth, her passion rising.

She slipped her hand onto his chest, moving across his stomach and up across his pectoral muscles, and back down, around his back and down to his firm butt. His own hands had moved from her waist down to her butt pulling her hips towards him, she could feel his hard on pressing against her lower abdomen. Slowly one of his hands moved up to cup her face, as he deepened his kiss and then his hand moved down over her breast. She moaned into his mouth, as her nipple hardened under his hand, his other hand moved up to her other breast, her breathing got faster, as did his. She slipped her hands under his pants onto his butt again, feeling the muscles as he moved his hips to meet her own. His hand slid down and pulled her leg up over his, their clothing being the only thing keeping them apart.

Reluctantly he pulled back "Lizzy, are you sure?" staring deep into her eyes.

"Yes, I want you Will" she panted back at him, her arms pulling him back to her. He rolled over on top of her, using his arms to stop from crushing her, he sat back on his haunches, and pulled her up so that she was sitting, his hands reach to her top and lifted it over her head. His breath caught as he looked as how absolutely beautiful her breasts were, how beautiful her body was; he stroked her shoulders, down her arms, lifting her hands to his mouth kissing each finger, and then kissing up one arm and then the other, moving into her neck, licking and kissing, finding her pulse point, and then up to her mouth. She released the breath she had been holding, he was so gentle, so caring. He pushed her to lie back and moved over her.

His mouth moved down to capture her nipple, then moving to the other one, gently caressing with his tongue. She was moaning loudly now, she could not care who heard, she had never felt like this before, no-one had moved her body to feel like this. He kissed her stomach, she could feel the warm pooling between her legs in anticipation of his touch. He moved up and was kissing her again, she felt the same fire burn through her body that she felt that first night at Netherfield after the fun run.

He moved to lie next to her and looked her in the eye "Lizzy, I love you, so much. We are not going to have sex tonight. I am going to touch and caress every part of your uncovered body, we are not going to take off any more clothing, I am going to get to know every inch of what I can see. But I would like to wait before we have sex."

She was stunned, she did not know what to say. She really wanted to have sex with him, make love with him, but this, this was so precious and special. It actually meant more to her than actually having sex,

"Are you okay with that?" his voice was full of concern, worried that he had offended her.

"Yes, perfectly. You are wonderful, I cannot tell you how much I love that you want to do that." The emotion in her voice did not leave him unaffected. He could feel her love and then he did exactly what he said he would do, worshiping every inch of her uncovered body. And she returned the favour, her hands and mouth roaming his chest and stomach, his muscular back, his arms and neck, his beautiful face.

When they finally fell asleep, they felt that their love was tangible, a presence in the room, every image and memory of what George had tried to do, wiped from her mind. For him it was a home coming, to a place of happiness, and that place was Lizzy.


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

Will woke up to the sound of Caroline screeching somewhere in the house "That Bennet slut and her sister had better not be in this house". He sighed, and not for the first time he felt sorry for Charles, she was after all his sister, he was stuck with her.

"Isn't there medication for whatever it is she has" Lizzy mumbled from her pillow, turning around to look at him, her just woke up expression just so precious. He leant over, kissed her lips lightly and headed for the bathroom. She could hear the shower and it sounded like he was humming. She smiled and snuggled a bit deeper into the bedding, but then she decided to take a chance.

She slipped out of the bed, removed her clothes that were not removed the night before, and walked into the bathroom. Slipping into the shower she looked at Wills body, he was sculptured, there was no other word for it, every inch of him was muscled and smooth. She reached around to slide her hand over his stomach, she felt him stiffen, turn and then pull her in closer as his body relaxed.

"I was afraid it was Caroline"

"I can get her for you if you want" she teased looking up at him.

"Oh hell NO!"

He took a step back and looked at her body, then reached out and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her, lifting her up and kissing her as if his very life depended on it. The feel of the water, his mouth on hers, their naked bodies so close, it was more than either of them could stand. He walked out of the shower, her still in his arms, laid her on the bed and moved on top of her.

"Now would be the time to say stop" his voice was thick with desire as he spoke in her ear, just the sound of his voice heightened her passion, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around him, her hips pulsing towards him. It was like they were in a dance, each move enhancing the emotions they were both feeling, his mouth moving from her lips to her neck, her breasts, her stomach and then down, she gasped, she had never gone this far with anyone. She felt his fingers mirroring his mouth and the sensations that wracked her body were unlike anything she had ever felt before. She was melting from the inside out, and then fireworks as she exploded, every nerve ending in her body alive with sensation. He moved up and took possession of her mouth again, she could smell and taste herself on him, she did not mind. His giving to her so selflessly encouraging her to explore his body as he had done hers, she pushed him over so that she was above him, raking her nails across his chest, then following with her mouth, nipping and suck on his nipples as she went, his moans encouraged her to move lower, now she was just following her instincts, her mouth moving on his erection, her hands feeling and caressing, she felt an urgency in him and she took him into her mouth, deeper. He cried out and pulled her head back, as he ejaculated onto his stomach. He pulled her to his side, kissing her repeatedly, she tasted salt and wetness, she pulled back, he was crying. "Will?"

He looked at her, his eyes and face soft "You are the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me."

He wiped his eyes and face. "I have never gone this far with a woman, it always felt like something that could only be shared with someone special, someone who touched my heart and soul. With you it feels as natural as breathing. My upbringing and my parents influenced so much of how I think about and behave in relationships with women, and I realise that this is not the norm, but I am so glad I waited for you, to share even this much with you is like getting a glimpse of heaven."

She could not help it, his words broke through walls she did not know she had, she was crying as well. She knew that her family loved her but this was different, this was her soul finding a kindred soul, her spirit meeting its match…her turn to vulnerable.

"I love you Will Darcy, with my heart, my body and my soul. You are part of me, my heart knows."

It took a while for both of them to return to feeling normal, they returned to the shower, he washed her gently, shampooing her short hair, massaging the conditioner, soaping her body, kissing her at every moment. Wrapping her in a huge bath sheet he deposited her in the bedroom with instructions to get dress. He finished his shower, and stood in the doorway naked, watched her get dressed. She found it hard not to look at his body, she found him so attractive.

"Enough Will, please stop staring and get dress, I cannot concentrate with you standing there in all your naked glory" He laughed, picked up her discarded towel from the bed, and dried himself, grabbed some jeans and a button down shirt and got dressed.

He reached out and pulled her off the bed towards him, kissing her soundly on the mouth and then keeping her hand in his, led her downstairs to the kitchen.

"What do you feel like for breakfast?" Will was looking in the refrigerator.

"What is there? How about some eggs with toast, and bacon if there is? I am starving" Lizzy had started brewing a pot of coffee.

"Yip, I will do the eggs and bacon, you can do the toast" he was already take the eggs and bacon out, and reaching for pans. Lizzy got busy with the coffee.

"Good morning Will, I trust you have gotten rid of that Eliza slut" Caroline strode into the kitchen, not seeing Lizzy, who was on the other side of Will.

"Caroline, you will not speak about my girlfriend like that" William was furious, even if Elizabeth had not been standing right there, it would still not give her the right to talk about Lizzy like that.

"Your girlfriend? I AM your girlfriend Will, and you need to realise that. I made sure that you got to see HER boyfriend propose to her at that ridiculous coffee shop, that is where that person belongs, with one of her own types." Caroline was purring, as she tried to touch Will, who stepped back and put his arm around Lizzy, bringing her into view.

"YOU! Get away from my man!" Caroline screamed, her red talons reaching out to Lizzy, Will grabbed both her arms and pushed her out of the kitchen.

"Get away from her, and get away from me. How dense are you? I have never shown any interest in you. Your brother, Theo, Louisa and I have told you that I am not interested in you, you are not my girlfriend, or my fiancé, or any other kind of romantic interest. There is something seriously wrong with you." Will was firm but his anger was very obvious.

By now the rest of the Netherfield party had come to investigate the noise. Charles looked totally embarrassed, Jane was concerned and the Hurst's looked afraid. Louisa had been on the receiving end of Caroline too many times to not know that this would end badly for everyone. Theo knew that Louisa was afraid of her sister, he had seen the scars on Louisa's arms where Caroline had physically attacked her.

Will turned around and returned to the kitchen, Caroline followed him and Lizzy watched as Caroline grabbed a knife from the butchers block and headed straight towards her. Lizzy knew she had to move, but Caroline was head straight towards her, knife raised.

Caroline flew sideways into the washer knocking her head, the knife dropped on the floor and it was kicked away, by Jane. Seeing Caroline heading towards her sister with the knife brought out a whole new side of Jane, that even she did not know existed, she had reacted on instinct.

Jane turned around, facing Charles "Get your sister under control, there is something very wrong with her and you need to get her the help she needs, now! OR we are through."

Jane reached for her sister and the two of them hugged,

"I agree with Jane, Charles, this has gone on long enough. There is no telling what she is going to do next." William hated to force his friends hand, but Caroline had come too close to injuring Lizzy or worse, that knife could have inflicted serious damage to someone as tiny as Lizzy.

Charles nodded, and walked out of the room. Louisa and Theo looked relieved but everyone was eying Caroline on the floor. Will walked out of the room and reappear a short while later, and proceeded to use cable ties to bind Caroline's hands and feet together. He lifted her into a fireman's hold and took her to the lounge where he deposited her on a couch and covered her with a blanket.

This seemed to spur the others into action; Jane, Theo and Louisa agreed to go shopping for stuff they would need up at the cabin. Will went over to Lizzy and took her in his arms

"Are you okay?"

"I am a bit shaken, but okay" she replied. "That was unexpected, I knew she was a little off kilter but that was bat shit crazy"

"I am so sorry Lizzy," Charles walked back into the kitchen, "I have committed her to a mental health facility, they are sending people over to fetch her. They will evaluate her and then decide on a course of treatment. I don't blame you if you want to press charges against her, you have more than enough witness to have an open/shut case." Charles sounded so sad.

"I won't press charges, so long as she goes for treatment" Lizzy felt sorry for Caroline, and jail was not going to make it better for her. "She arranged for you to be at the coffee shop that night so that you would see George propose, she knew…she and George must know each other, talk to each other."

"It would appear that way, and that in itself is scary, two mentally unbalanced beings plotting together." Will frowned. "I am going to finish breakfast, then we can eat, how is that toast and coffee coming along. Being attacked by Charles crazy sister does not exempt you from breakfast duties" Will teased Lizzy.

"You have no compassion for my nerves" Lizzy fired back, dramatically pressing the back of her wrist against her forehead.

Charles laughed "Thanks for being so understanding guys, I am not sure I would be in your position." He cleared his throat "Jane was an unexpected….well I have no idea she had it in her." He sounded totally in awe.

"I don't think she even knew what she was capable of. I am so proud of her" Lizzy knew she owed her life to her older sister.

Charles blushed "She is going to be an awesome mother."

Lizzy and Will burst out laughing. "Out of all of what just happened, that is what you are taking away?" Will was amazed. "You and Jane so suit one another, you might as well just propose my friend, although, I think she might actually be too good for you."

"I know she is, I will work my whole life to deserve such an angel" Charles agreed, reaching down into his jean pocket, he pulled out a ring box, he opened it and inside was a classic solitaire diamond engagement ring.

Lizzy gasped, "She is going to love that" her eyes filled with tears. Will slide his arm around her shoulder.

"Hey, hey it's okay Lizzy." She slid her hands around his waist and buried her face in his chest. He returned her hug, it had been quite a morning and they had not even had breakfast yet.


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18.

They finished making breakfast, Charles joined them in the dining room and they discussed the plans to go up to the cabin. Without Caroline going with, it seemed as if the air had lifted.

"I am going to wait for the orderlies to arrive to collect Caroline, and then Jane and I will drive up, will you take Theo and Louisa up with you?" Charles asked.

"Yes, we are also taking Mary with us, we will take the shopping with us, so that by the time you get there we will be settled in." William arranged.

The door bell sounded, "That was fast" said Charles, getting up and head for the door.

"Will, you mangy mutt" a voice boomed from the door.

"Rich, you geriatric old tart, did you escape from the old age home again!?" Will got up and was enveloped in a bear hug. He was as tall as Will, with a very similar build, his hair was blonde and curly and he had the same blue eyes. Those same eyes came to rest on Lizzy.

"Hello there, please tell me you are single and that I am your type, if there is a God in heaven, please, please let this be mine!" he walked towards her his hand stretched out.

"Oh Richard behave yourself, don't totally throw your name away" Will pushed the man out of the way. "Lizzy, this horrible specimen is my cousin, Richard Fitzwilliam. Rich, this is Elizabeth Bennet, MY girlfriend!"

The only thing stopping Richards eyebrows from shooting off the top of his head was his hair, Lizzy was sure of it, the man looked totally shocked.

"Your girlfriend?...as in William Darcy is with a woman? Are you being blackmailed? Held at gunpoint? On drugs?" Richard looked seriously alarmed

"Is he always this melodramatic?" Lizzy looked at Will with amusement. "Or is he related to my mother, because she is the only other person I know capable of such drama"

"Ouch, I am mortally offended" Richard volleyed back.

Will knew then that his cousin and Lizzy would get along just fine.

"Looks like we might have to go in two cars now, unless we leave this reprobate here whilst we go to the cabin." Charles suggested as he walked into the room.

"Cabin, I only just got here, are you guys gypsies or something?" Richard looked confused.

"Hi, Honey I am home" followed by a lot of giggling as Jane, Theo and Louisa walked in.

"Oh slay me now, is it something in the drinking water in this town that each woman is more beautiful than the next!" Richard was staring at Jane.

"Richard, meet MY girlfriend Jane Bennet. Jane, this is Wills cousin Richard" Charles put his arm around Jane.

"Please to meet you" said Jane blushing at her entrance, as she only expected it to be Charles, Will and Lizzy at the house.

"Let's pack and get this trip to the cabin on the go" Theo said, taking Louisa's arm and heading up stairs.

"Yes, that is a great idea, we'll be back in a bit Rich, make yourself comfortable." Said Charles as he and Jane also headed up stairs.

Richard headed into the living room.

"Guys, is there something I need to know?" Richard yelled "There is an unconscious woman cable tied on your couch, I always knew Will was into some weird stuff, but this not it"

"Oh that's just Caroline" Will replied from the kitchen, "We are just waiting for the orderlies to come and pick her up."

"Caroline…orderlies? Do I even want to know?" Richard responded.

"We will explain on the way to the cabin, let's just get the kitchen cleaned, our gear packed and then we can look at updating you." Will told his cousin.

Finally, everyone had packed their stuff in their cars. Louisa and Theo were going to wait with Charles and Jane; Will, Lizzy and Richard would pick up Mary and take most of the stuff up to the cabin with them.

Lizzy messaged Mary to let her know they were on their way. Richard and Lizzy fought amicably over the radio station and music tastes all the way to the Bennet house. Will was silent but the smile on his face let the other two know that he was in a good space.

"I am so glad Mary agreed to come with us." Lizzy said, looking at Will, "she does not often do things in a group, unless you count practices and performances with the orchestra."

"Orchestra? Your sister is a musician?" Richard asked, this family had him fascinated.

Her mother was on them the moment they entered the house "Lizzy, you must take George with you to the cabin, you know how he loves being there."

"No mom, and there is no further discussion on that topic." Lizzy could not believe her mother.

"Oh and who is this tall drink of water?" her mother eyed Richard up and down,

Lizzy was mortified "Mother, this is Richard, Wills cousin. Richard my mother Matilda Bennet"

"Pleasure to meet you Mrs Bennet, I can see where your daughters get their stunning good looks from." Richard totally charmed her mother.

Lizzy took advantage of her mother's distraction and headed upstairs to get Mary.

"William, great to see you again." Mr Bennet walked into the living room, "Looking after my Lizzy are you?"

"Good afternoon sir, I sure am. Can I introduce you to my cousin, Richard Fitzwilliam. Rich, Mr Bennet, Lizzy's and Janes father."

"Good to meet you Mr Bennet" Richard reached out his hand, the two men shook hands, "You have two very beautiful daughters."

"Oh dear, I must have lost three somewhere" Mr Bennet faked looking alarm.

"Lost three?" Richard was confused.

"I have five beautiful daughters, young man, five!" Mr Bennet and Will were laughing at Richards confusion.

"Five, oh good lord Mr Bennet, how on earth have you survived?" Richard exclaimed in mock horror.

"Oh don't be so silly, Thomas" Mrs Bennet slapped her husband's arm playfully.

Mary and Lizzy came downstairs, Will took Marys bag from Lizzy and took it out to the car. Matilda hugged Mary "If you don't feel well, come home immediately, don't be a martyr. Lizzy, look after your sister, don't let her get a cold or some god awful virus."

Richard could not keep his eyes off Mary, she was not traditionally beautiful, but the shaven hair made her eyes look enormous, and her whole look was exotic.

"Good Lord, they just keep coming. Richard Fitzwilliam my lady, at your service"

Mary looked like a deer in the headlights "Mary Bennet, charmed I am sure" She looked around and made eye contact with Lizzy.

"Wills cousin" Lizzy answered the silent question. "I think he is the one we apologise for upfront"

"I am wounded, mortally again" Richard gasped playfully

"We live in hope" Mary responded dryly.

"I like this one, I think we shall keep her" Richard declared, slipping Marys hand around his arm, he promenaded her out to the car.

"Bye Mom, Bye Dad" Mary yelled over her shoulder.

"Take care Mary. Keep warm and make sure you don't stay up too late." Her mother realised that they were leaving "Bye, bye. Please look after Mary."

"Is there something I should know?" Richard asked looking down at Mary, "your mother is very protective over you and could barely greet your sister."

"I have leukaemia and she is scared I will die" Mary answered nonchalantly.

"Oh good God, I have really put both feet into my mouth this time" Richard looked so embarrassed.

"I am not made of glass, I am not going to crumble up and blow away. Really I am fine, I preferred it when you thought I was some piece of fluff you could flirt with" Mary said caustically.

"Oh really, a piece of fluff is a bit harsh don't you think. More like a picture of beauty and grace" Richard rose to the occasion and picked up the banter from before Marys rather alarming revelation.

He opened the car door and let Mary slide in the back seat, climbing in after her.

Will smiled at Lizzy, "I think she is going to be just fine. He is a rogue but he is an honourable rogue, he won't hurt her or play with her feelings. "

"I am going to hold you to that" she smiled back at him.

"I expect you to" with that he put the car in gear and they drove to the cabin.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

The temperature had dropped by the time they got to the cabin, and everyone rushed to get all the gear and food inside. Richard opted to sleep on the couch as there were only four bedrooms and he did not want to make Mary uncomfortable by insisting that he sleep in the twin bed in her room.

Will and Richard stocked up on more firewood so that they would not have to go out again to get more later in the night. Lizzy and Mary sorted out the kitchen, and started preparing some food, everyone seemed to have missed lunch and hunger was starting to set in.

Richard built a fire, and William took the last of the bags from the living area to the bedrooms.

Lizzy had already allocated rooms to everyone, sticking name tags on the doors. She had the idea originally when Caroline was going to come with them, to prevent her barging in on her and Will under the excuse of not knowing whose room was whose.

Richard had been watching Lizzy and Will interact, he had never seen his cousin so relaxed with a woman, or so happy. He was horrified to hear what happened that morning with Caroline. He was always a bit wary of her, she never like him, and took every opportunity to attack him verbally. She would try and monopolise Will, pretending that he was her boyfriend, he knew that she had even told some of her friends that he was her fiancé.

He found the connection between Lizzy's family and Wickham disturbing, Will had promised to explain that situation to him. He saw that Wickham made Elizabeth very uncomfortable, Mary detested him, Mrs Bennet adored him and Mr Bennet just ignored him. Wickham was another person he felt was a little unhinged, and it would take very little to set him off. He had placed a call to his office, and assigned an inspector to delve a bit into what Wickham had been up to. What was the point of being an FBI undercover agent and not using the resources at your disposal? To everyone else he was Richard, the sales man, only Georgiana and Will knew what he really did. The sales man persona got him in most places, and allowed him to be larger than life, distracting people from his real purpose, but his altered persona was as much a part of him as the agent part.

Which brought him to Mary, he felt that she saw through his larger than life act, and that in itself was scary. The revelation of her illness shook him to the core, the short hair of her sisters now made total sense, he had wondered why three such beautiful women would cut their hair so short. Mary did not look like Jane or even Elizabeth, there were similarities, but Marys look was more exotic, more fragile but still strong. Her wit was as sharp as Lizzy's but she delivered it with such dryness, you could almost miss it if you were dull witted. This Bennet girl had him quite fascinated and that was not a good thing,

He had been staring into the fire whilst he thought, out of the corner of his eye he saw Mary come from the kitchen with two steaming mugs in her hands, one of which she offered to him, the rich chocolate smell was decadent.  
"Thanks Mary, this is just the thing"

"You're welcome" she smiled and walked over to the couch, pick her book up from the table, she put her drink down, pulled the blanket over her legs and nestled down to read her book. Glasses perched on her nose like a librarian, his arousal was immediate, he had such a weakness for librarian looking girls. And this one was finer than most.

"Jeez Rich, control yourself" Will had come into the room to stand next to him, and he had not even been aware he was so distracted. "That is my girlfriend's little sister you pervert, and she is special to both of us." His voice was low, but obviously not low enough.

"Thanks Will, you are special to me to" they both turned to look at Mary, who was still focussed on her book, but the smirk on her face indicated that she had in fact spoken.

"I am going to marry that woman." Rich declared out loud. At that Mary turned blood red, still not looking up from her book.

Just then Charles, Jane, Theo and Louisa arrive, the noise level in the cabin went up but it was cheerful. They had not eaten yet, so more food was prepared and they joined Mary and Richard in the living area, she put her book down to join the conversation, and for the first time in a very long time she felt like she had a place. She hated being sick, and being fussed over, she had gotten so used to being overlooked by everyone except Lizzy and Jane. She was constantly being force to join family activities, and the various events arranged for fund raising, her mother insisting on put her into the spotlight; she knew that her mother felt guilty for not paying her more attention when she was growing up, but she also suspected that her mother loved the attention having a sick daughter brought her. This was different, she was included but not singled out.

She looked around the room trying not to make it obvious she was looking at Richard, there was more to this man that what met the eye, and even she had to admit, he was exceptionally pleasing to the eye, almost like Will but with softer edges. But she had seen something in his eyes that belied his brash loud exterior, and that intrigued her.

Richard caught her looking at him, he did not look at her directly but out of the corner of his eye he could see she was sizing him up? Assessing him? He was not sure, and her was not sure that he liked it, but he was not too sure that he didn't like it either.

Lizzy and Will had gone to walk outside, following what Will consider a rather dubious path but Lizzy seemed to know where they were going.

"Lizzy, how often did you come up here with George?" he knew he was being childish, but he had such a surge of jealousy when her mother was trying to force George onto Lizzy earlier.

"He came up here with our family one Easter, we had just started dating, but he hated it and made it so unpleasant I never asked him again. He is not exactly an outdoors person" she hated that even though he had not come with them George had manage to insert himself into their time away.

"True, I never noticed that before. When my dad and I went camping it was often just us and Richard, and sometimes James, Richards brother. I remember George saying that if it does not include hunting and killing something he does not see the point of being in nature. My mother was horrified, no-one in our family hunts."

"Yes, I remember him saying something very similar that time as well, Kitty burst into tears, she loves animals and at that time wanted to become a zoo keeper." Lizzy smiled at the memory of her sister and her zoo keeper stage.

"Giana wanted to become a ringmaster for a circus, so that she could free the animals and put the people who tortured them into cages and make them perform." She was very creative about how she was going to make them suffer, feeding them pickles with peanut butter for breakfast, and making them wear polyester suits with shoes that were too small, basically a list of her pet peeves which would be applied her captives." Will chuckled at the memories of what was a good time in his life. He was sure that his current situation brought back these memories because he felt as happy now.

"Giana? Oh Georgiana" Lizzy laughed at her own slowness.

They had reach a lake which looked like it would freeze over at any moment, it was pretty in a cold and treacherous way. They made their way around the lake talking about various things from their childhood, each one wanting to know more about the other.

Lizzy looked behind her for what seemed like the tenth time,

"Everything okay?" Will asked

"I am not sure, I feel like I am being watched, but there is no-one else mad enough to be out here, it is getting colder by the minute, I think we need to add a dash of speed and get back to the cabin."

"Would you like my jacket?" he offered.

"No, I am still warm thanks but it would not be wise to stay out any longer" she thanked him.

He did not want to alarm her but he felt the same thing, someone or something was watching them, it was not a good feeling and he wanted to get back to the cabin to talk to Richard.

They fell silent as they walked faster to complete their circuit of the lake. Stomping dirt off their feet they went into the cabin, the warmth and cheer inside the cabin removed the eerie feeling they had both had. It had intensified the closer they got to the cabin and Lizzy felt extremely on edge.

The rest of the party had started playing Monopoly and between Theo and Richard the clown factor was at an all-time high, with everyone constantly in stitches with laughter. When Theo accidentally knocked the board over they decided the game was over. Lizzy and Jane offered to make a beef stew for supper, which was met with great enthusiasm, Mary and Louisa joined them in the kitchen and helped prepare the vegetables. Before long there was a pot hanging over the fire bubbling with the most delicious aroma filling the cabin. Richard and Theo shooed the women out of the kitchen and set about making rice, garlic bread and a salad, much to the amazement of Lizzy and Mary. Having stayed at Netherfield a few times Jane knew that Theo actually loved working in the kitchen and Louisa had many a happy memory of their earlier years where he would cook for her.

Theo had not gotten drunk since the night at the Fund Raiser, he had had a beer or the occasional glass of wine, he had totally re-engaged with Louisa and their relationship was flourishing, and she was realising how much damage Caroline had done to her marriage. Caroline never forgave her for getting married, or rather getting married without her permission and before her. Theo was the first thing that was totally Louisa's since Caroline was born. She had always wanted what everyone else had, the best of everything. She had taken so many of Louisa's favourite things. Her father had bought her a velveteen rabbit because she had loved the story so much, Louisa and that rabbit were inseparable, until one day she got home from school and it was in the toilet, unflushed toilet. Her mother had washed the rabbit several times in the washer but it was never the same for Louisa, and all because she would not give it to Caroline when she wanted it. She did not realise that there was a tear running down her cheek, until she felt a hand wiping the tear away.

"Hey Lou, what's wrong my love?" Theo was sitting next to her, with his hand cupping her face.

"Why did I let Caroline come between us Theo? Why did I give her so much power over my life, our relationship?" she was truly saddened at the time they had lost to her selfish sister.

"We cannot change the mistakes we made, but we can make better decisions for ourselves going forward, and I think with the friends we currently have, we are going to be just fine" Theo comforted her. "You did not make those mistakes by yourself, I could have gotten a spine and stood up for our relationship, I just chose the path of least resistance and let her have her way, the same way your whole family has done until today. That was a very brave thing Charles did, we can only hope that whatever treatment or therapy she gets it helps her and she can become part of our family again. But Louisa, if she does not change or refuses therapy she cannot be part of our relationship again, you will have to choose."

"I chose you" Louisa whispered as she leant in and kissed him.

"Get a room, in a cabin, in the woods" Richard teased them, "some of us here are single and do not need to be corrupted by you married, nearly married people"

"You should pay attention Rich, then you would not be single for much longer" Theo teased back.

Richard covered his ears and began to sing nursery rhymes loudly, not the version you would know from child hood. "Mary had a little lamb, the doctors were astounded. Everywhere that Mary went Gynaecologists surrounded."

Mary started to laugh, followed closely by Louisa.

"Don't encourage him" Will said, walking into the room with place settings and started to set the table; this spurned everyone into action, Louisa went to get the condiments, Mary got the garlic bread, Lizzy brought the rice out while Richard and Theo got plates and bowls. Jane and Charles took drink orders and soon everyone was dishing up from the pot at the fire and sitting down helping themselves to the dishes on the table.

William and Charles agreed to do the dishes, whilst Mary made a quick dessert of chocolate volcano pudding which made the evening perfect.

After sitting in front of the fire not saying much for a while, everyone agreed that it was probably a good idea to go to bed.


	20. Chapter 20

**Again, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to review, I appreciate the criticism, praise (blushes) and corrections, they are all gold to me. **

CHAPTER 20

Richard was just about to go to sleep on the couch when he heard a door open, someone walk from the bedroom area and open the front door.

"Whose there?" he heard Mary call out.

He sat up, "Mary?"

"There is someone outside, they were at my window" she said, quite calmly.

"Are you sure?" Ricard could not believe this, any other woman would scream her head off at someone being at their bedroom window, but not her. Damn he did not need another reason to like this woman.

Mary cocked her eye brow at him, now she looked so much like Lizzy.

"I will go and check" he said. He doubted that Mary was prone to flights of fancy so even if it was some animal, there must have been something at her window.

He grabbed the torches that they had put on the table before going to bed, pulled on his boots and jacket over his track pants and t-shirt. Mary was putting her jacket and boots on over her sleepwear.

"You don't need to come out, it does not make sense that both of us get cold. Go to the window in your room so that I know which one it is."

Expecting her to disagree with him, he was pleasantly surprise when she nodded and complied.

He took two torches, because he had watched enough horror movies to know that one would die at the critical moment. He laughed quietly at himself, some big bad FBI agent he was!

He heard a small tapping and there was Mary at her window, he shone the torches down at the patio area outside her window, he sucked in his breath, there were muddy foot prints there, he followed them with the light and they moved to the window next to Mary's, and then further off into the dark, he swung the torches to look out into the darkness but it seemed to just swallow the light. If someone had been there they had obviously disappear when Mary called out the door.

He returned inside, and Mary was sitting on the couch where he had been about to fall asleep earlier, she was looking at him expectantly.

"There was someone there, there were muddy footprints, too wet not to be recent. Are there rangers in this part of the woods?"

"There are, but they know us, they would not look in windows, they would knock at the door and invite themselves for coffee." Mary seemed pretty sure of this.

"I cannot think of anyone else who would be up here and outside in this cold" Richard puzzled.

"Do you have your gun with you?" Mary did not question that he had a gun, just whether or not he had it with him. He saw no point in denying it.

"Yes, but it is in my bag. I suppose there is no harm in having it within reach, but I am sure it is nothing to worry about."

"After Caroline going unhinged, I am not passed believing that we should rather be safe than sorry. I know everyone except me believes that George Wickham is harmless, I think he can be a very dangerous man, and he is uncommonly interested in Lizzy, the level of un-healthiness exceeds my level of comfort, and makes me very wary of him, especially when it comes to Lizzy."

Richard looked at her, "You are very perceptive" it was a statement, she did not have to respond but she did.

"Yes, Mr Sales Man, I am" she smiled and started to get off the couch, then she turned to him "Please could you sleep in the other bed in my room, I do not feel easy knowing that someone was at my window, I doubt they were looking for me, but it is still not a nice feeling"

Richards heart both sank and rose, at this moment his attraction to Mary was at an all-time high, and there was nothing more he wanted than to be close to her, but his job was not conducive to relationships. Which is why he elected to remain single these days.

"Okay, he grabbed his blankets and bag, and followed her to the room, where he made himself comfortable. The bed was by far more comfortable than the couch. But sleep was evading him, he was aware of the woman in the other bed, he could hear her breathing, he knew she was not sleeping either, but he did not want to start a conversation and increase his already huge attraction to her.

He was also worried about the footprints, he had gathered that George had been to the cabin previously, and although he knew George was not an outdoors man, he understood his obsession with Lizzy to be such that he could overcome his aversion to mother nature if he thought he could cause trouble between Will and Lizzy. Why did Will have to fall in love with the woman George was obsessed with? So complicated, and why did that woman have to have such a beautiful and attractive sister. So he lay there in the dark, trying to logic away his attraction to Mary.

Mary was not faring much better. She knew she was totally attracted to Richard, he was everything she like in a man, but knew that a man like him would never be interested in her. Yes, he flirted with her but he flirted with everyone, even her mother so she could not take it seriously or to heart without opening herself to some major heartbreak. She knew he was not sleeping, he was probably trying to figure out the footprints at her window, she was glad he took her seriously.

"Do you think it was Wickham?" she asked into the darkness "I mean, at the window?"

"Honestly, he is my prime suspect, or an accomplice of his" Richard knew she would only accept the truth.

"Accomplice?" Mary did not like the sound of that.

"George had a very shady past, I am not sure how he hid it in Merryton, but he has been involved in all sorts of low level crime, include drug dealing and pornography, amongst others. But somehow he always manages to escape arrest, someone else has the drugs or porn on them, not Wickham, he claims innocence, his accomplices are too scared of him to rat on him so they take the fall. And he makes it worth their while somehow. We have yet to find someone willing to dish the dirt on him." Richard suddenly fell silent, he had never in his entire career told someone so much that alluded to what he actually did. His blood ran cold at his stupidity. How could he have let this girl get through his defences.

He stood up, put on his jacket and walked to the door, "I am battling to sleep, I am going to make myself something warm to drink, would you like something?" he had to put some distance between Mary and himself.

"No thanks Richard." She responded "I guessed you were more than a salesman, you did not tell me anything I did not already suspect. Your secret is safe with me."

"Thank you Mary" he slipped out the room, he felt bad, she had asked him to sleep there because she was anxious, but he just needed a little bit of distance from her.

After a glass of warm milk, Richard walked around the cabin outside, there were no more fresh foot prints anywhere, so he returned to the warmth of the cabin, and the room with Mary. She had fallen asleep, or was doing a good impression of sleeping. He slipped back into bed, sliding his gun under the bed, within arm's reach, and eventually drift off to sleep.


	21. Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

Mary was the first person wake, her head was pounding, not a good sign, she shuffled to the kitchen barely able to see a thing, the pain in her head was so severe.

"Mary? Are you okay?" Richards voice came from behind her, the concern in his voice very obvious.

"Headache" it was the sum total of what she could say, without her head exploding.

She felt his hand on her arm, he led her to the couch and sat her down, "I will be right back, just try and relax, I know it is hard but it will help."

Moments later she felt him lift her hand, put something in it, and then he placed a glass in her other hand. "Take those, they will help."

"My mom said I must not take drugs from strangers. Ouch!" she tried to joke and as she swallowed the tablets, she heard him chuckling.

"No trust, I run outside into the dark for you, I spend the whole night listening to you snore like a lumberjack…and this is the thanks I get!"

She closed her eyes, wishing she felt up to a verbal sparring with him; but the pain in her head was so intense.

After a few moments she felt him take her hands and start pressing on the flesh between her thumb and fore finger, rotating in little circles, the pain subsided somewhat, it was not totally gone but it was bearable. "That was some medication you gave me Richard, was it wise that I take them?" she asked, half-jokingly.

"It's the pain meds they give us on salesman training." He said with a silly grin on his face.

"Right!" Mary looked at him with half open eyes. "And the acupressure was on the same training?"

"No, it is something my mom has always done for us when we have headaches, especially when we were small, and she did not want to give us painkillers. And those are the same painkiller we use for Georgiana when she gets a headache."

Mary's heart sank, Georgiana? Probably a girlfriend.

"Sorry that was random, Will's sister also has leukaemia, or had, she is in remission. Will and I have co-guardianship over her. We have learned what we can and cannot give her for the various side effects of treatment, and even now whilst she is in remission, we are cautious when it comes to medication and supplements." Richard had watched Mary withdraw as he mentioned Georgiana and realised that with Will being such a private person, he had probably not mentioned his sister or her illness to any one other than Lizzy. He felt a spark of hope at her reaction though, maybe she felt something for him, followed with the sinking feel of knowing that he could not act on that hope.

"Oh, I knew he had a sister, I did not know she had been ill." Marys voice was quiet, he almost did not hear her. "Is she doing well? In remission, I mean"

"Yes, there were some setbacks, but she seems to be moving passed it, she even started playing the piano again, we had despaired that she might never play again, and she is so talented, it would have been a waste. She is currently with my parents; my mother is spoiling her rotten no doubt, she always wanted a daughter, and all she got was James and me." He gave a self-depreciating chuckle at the last part.

"How is the headache?" he asked

"Still there but better" Mary responded "Please don't say anything to Lizzy or Jane"

"Don't say anything to Lizzy or Jane about what?" Lizzy had just entered the room and unfortunately heard the last part of Marys comment.

Mary sighed "I just have a headache, I don't want any fuss."

"But Mary, you were not feeling well the other morning as well, same symptoms?" Lizzy countered

Mary knew that her sister was concerned but she was so tired of all the fuss and drama, she had enjoyed the time at the cabin because she was just part of the group, not Mary the cancer patient.

"No, just a headache Lizzy, and that is probably because I did not sleep that well, Richard is a horrible roommate!"

"Richard? Roommate?" Lizzy stared at her sister, and then at Richard, he looked a bit embarrassed, but Mary was not phased.

"There was someone at my window last night as I went to bed" she told Lizzy "Richard went outside to check, there were footprints going from window to window, I was not comfortable, so I asked him to sleep in the other bed."

"Footprint?" Lizzy again looked from Mary to Richard. "The other night when Will and I were up here alone, there were foot prints leading to this window." She pointed to the living area window. "Yesterday when Will and I walked around the lake, we felt as if we were being watched, but we did not see anyone."

"Will mentioned that to me when we were preparing supper, but it slipped my mind after supper, I did mean to take a walk around the cabin before going to sleep." Richard wished that he had done a perimeter sweep, he was getting too relaxed, and too distracted by Mary, but then again he was not working, not officially, but he did feel a duty to keep everyone safe.

"Let's get breakfast started, then after we have cleaned up and packed the cars we can take a walk around and check the area surrounding the cabin, perhaps we will find something that will shed some light on the foot prints." Richard suggested, his stomach growling in agreements.

"Horror movie material, we should just pack up and go home" said Mary "Everyone knows the moment you start looking the serial killer starts picking people off one by one." She was smirking as she said this, Richard had to smile, remembering taking both torches last night for similar reasons.

Mary, Lizzy and Richard started making French toast and bacon for breakfast, Will soon joined them, making the coffee and getting the table ready. Their joking and laughter drew the other two couples out of their rooms. Loud exclamations could be heard, bewailing the cold. Louisa and Janes being the loudest, as they shuffled through to the living area, sniffing the air appreciatively.

After breakfast, the late sleepers agreed to clean the kitchen, and the rest got to work tidying the living area. Will and Richard agreed that another, longer trip to the cabin soon was a great idea, they would clean the fireplace then as the ashes were still very warm from the previous night. Lizzy sent Mary to start packing her things as she ran a mop over the floor, Richard and Will restocked the firewood from the shed outside.

As they approached the shed Richard felt he had to speak to his cousin "Will, Lizzy said there were foot prints when you guys were here the last time?" it had been niggling at Richards mind the whole way through breakfast. He did not want to alarm the others, but he was very certain that there were no footprints on the side of the cabin where Marys room was when they arrived. He did notice dirt near living area window when they arrived yesterday, and they could very likely be footprints, wind and rain disturbing the shape of the prints. But he was very sure that the ones last night were fresh footprints.

"Yes, it was very noticeable because Lizzy and I went straight to the door that night, we did not walk around the outside other than to go from and to the car. It worried me quite a bit, Lizzy and I slept on the couch, we did not go to the rooms." Will was glad his cousin was aware of his concerns.

"There was someone outside Marys window last night, and the room next door to hers. There is no doubt about it." Richard knew Will had not heard their conversation earlier.

"Really? How do you know, what happened?" there was slight panic in Wills voice.

"Mary come through and opened the front door, asking who was there. I went outside to take a look, and there were foot prints leading to her window and the next." Richard explained

"Theo and Louisa's room, they fell asleep really quickly, Lizzy and I could hear them snoring almost as soon as we got into bed, at least we hope that was snoring." Will said, with a slight grin, despite his worry.

"Look here" Richard was pointing to a dirt trail that cross theirs, it came from around the corner where Mary, Louisa and Theos rooms were; moving in front of the remaining bedroom windows which faced the woods, the rooms where Charles and Jane, and Lizzy and Will had slept. The footprints came off or started the wooden veranda that ran around the cabin at the point where the path from the kitchen to the shed was. It would require tracking skills to follow them into to the forest and it would alert the others to Richards real occupation; as much as he wanted to track the prints, Richard decided to wait until they did the 'sweep' of the area.

They finished stacking the wood by the fireplace, packed their bags, leaving them at the stairs down to the path. Richard, Mary and Lizzy had suggested the 'sweep' saying that the footprints might have been someone in need, or an animal. They were just going to go a couple of meters either way, splitting in to two groups, meeting back in 15 minutes.

Jane, Charles, Theo and Louisa formed one group and would cover the area in front of the cabin around the path.

Lizzy, Will, Mary and Richard would cover the back and off to the side. They split up further into couples, with Lizzy and Will going to the side and Mary and Richard covering the back area, but always with the other couple in sight.

Richard showed Mary where the tracks led off into the tree line, small signs broken twigs, depressed grass areas, mud on a rock. When they reach the tree line, Will and Lizzy moved over to where they were. Richard showed them the trail moving into the trees, when they heard the others call them back, it was time to leave.

Charles was eager to get back, Caroline's assessment was this morning and he was hoping for a positive prognosis, it was hard to think of his little sister as being a total nutcase, despite the incidents in the last week. Jane had tried to be positive but after yesterday mornings attack on her sister, she was uncharacteristically neutral.

Theo and Louisa had decided that regardless of what the outcome was, Caroline was not welcome in their lives. They had spoken at length since the fun run, realising that each of them wanted to start a family but thought the other did not. With the communication channels now open, they wanted to begin with the rest of their lives, and that included falling pregnant. Neither of them wanted Caroline around their child/children; she did not like children and she did not like Louisa doing anything without her permission.

Lizzy and Will, although not starting a family, did not want Caroline in their lives either, she was just too unpredictable and unstable. They were going to lay charges against Wickham when they got back into town and did not want to have to deal with Caroline's nonsense as well.


	22. Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

Lizzy and Will dropped Mary off at home, Richard said that he would hang out with her whilst Will and Lizzy were at the police station. Checking that Mary was okay with this, she was, they headed off.

At the police station, Lizzy felt embarrassed at first; she and Officer Miles Norfolk had been at school together from preschool to graduation. However, he was totally professional, asking pertinent questions and clarifying details. Lizzy gave as much information about Wickham as she could, realising that since he had returned she knew almost nothing about him, no contact numbers or email addresses, just that he had been staying with Tom. Will had also offered what he knew about Wickham, which Miles acknowledged but also admitted that Will should lay charges of his own, because other than using the information as 'character witness' information, he had not been charged or found guilty of anything Will mentioned so it was not relevant.

Will felt angry at himself for not laying charges when it all happened, both times, trying to protect his sister had opened Lizzy up to Wickham's evil, leaving his sister exposed as well, there was no telling what Wickham would do next. He had not, as he believe, protected his sister, he had prolonged Wickham's ability to interfere with her life and his, and now by default Lizzy's.

As they walked out of the police station, he put his arm around Lizzy's shoulders "I am so sorry, my desperate need to protect my family's name and image had put you in this position. Wickham would have been in jail already."

"You could not know that he would stoop so low, Will, jealousy does strange things to people. Although I am not sure this is jealousy, this is something else. He does not really love me; not like you do. He wants to own me, possess me, control me, he does not want to be part of my life, he wants to be my life." Lizzy realised as she was talking to Will, that Wills love had made her realise these things about George. Will wanted to cherish her, share with her, listen to her, be a part of her life, all the things she had constantly asked George for when they were dating.

"I also need to talk to my mother, I cannot carry on like this. She needs to let go of George." Will nodded agreeing with her. He hoped her mother would listen this time.

"Why don't Richard and I take Mary out for an hour or two, and your other sisters if they are home, so that you can talk to your mom? Your dad is there?"

Lizzy looked so pleased, "Would you do that for me? All my sisters? Do you know what you are letting yourself in for?" She threw her arms around his neck, kissing him thoroughly "You wonderful man."

"Get a room" they heard someone shout, looking up they saw Charlotte heading towards them. She was looking at Lizzy with an expression Lizzy knew well, Charlotte wanted an update, the last time she saw Lizzy and Will was at the fun run, and they were not exactly close then.

They greeted each other and took a few minutes to catch up, telling Charlotte about the trip to cabin, saying she should join them the next time and made plans to meet up later for supper at Netherfield.

Will and Lizzy walked into the house to the sounds of World War Three, only to realise that Richard had involved Mary, Kitty, Lydia and Thomas Bennet in a game of poker, it did not seem to matter that the stakes were beans, everyone was committed to winning, loudly. Lizzy and Wills arrival distracted everyone, and Wills suggestion that he and Richard take Mary, Kitty and Lydia to the mall was met with great elation, Mary realising that Lizzy wanted to talk to their parents, encouraged her younger sisters to hurry up and promised to get them each some new earrings.

Matilda Bennet was not a totally stupid woman, noticing that Will had taken her three youngest daughters out shopping, realised that something was going on.

"Mother, we need to talk." Lizzy was not going to beat around the bush, her mother needed to hear the truth, despite how brutal it was.

"Really Lizzy, getting rid of your sisters, that is a bit dramatic?" Matilda was nervous, most of the time her second eldest daughter avoided conversations with her.

"No mom, I need you to understand what has happened, what kind of a person George Wickham really is." Lizzy really did not want to hurt her mother, she knew her mother would never intentionally hurt her or put her in harms way, but sometimes she was so gullible and trusted people just because they were good looking and flattered her. Lizzy knew that her mother had been an awkward child, that grew into an awkward teenager who did not fit in socially, and only in her late teens, early twenties did her mother coming into her own, and then the boys flocked to her, her own brother had had to rescue her from men who would take advantage of her by flattering her and saying what she wanted to her. Luckily when she was twenty-three she met Thomas Bennet, who treated her like a princess, and she fell in love, they were married with in a year. Her daughter's social success was her success, that they could attract men from a young age was a testament to their beauty.

"George Wickham is not the man you think he is. You know he just up and left two years ago, he did not give me advanced warning, nor did he contact me the entire time he was gone. Since he has come back, he expects to pick up where he left off, after two years, does that sound right to you?"

Her mother did not respond, she just looked at Lizzy, not sure how to react.

"George pressurised me for our entire relationship to have sex with him, that I was young did not seemed to bug him, that I was not willing to give up my virginity to him made me a challenge to him. You know how Jane and I feel about sex, we don't want to just sleep with the first person that comes along, we want to wait for the right person, the person that will value it for what it is. George nagged each and every day, I never felt like I was ready or that he was the right person."

"Will knows George, mom, he grew up with George, George is not a nice person. He took porn pictures of Wills ten-year-old sister, two day after their father died. He stole Wills father's camera, it was not his to take. Will sister was so traumatised she totally blocked it out, she does not remember the incident. Who does that to a ten-year-old?"

There were tears running down Matilda's face, but Lizzy felt that she had to continue. "Will sister was also diagnosed with Leukaemia, George charmed his way into Georgiana's life, try to talk her into leaving her treatment, in favour of 'alternative' cures; trying to make her fall in love with him, whilst she is battling cancer, he did all this. Then he tried to defraud people out of money, using her as a front, telling them he was raising funds for cancer research, but keeping the money."

Lizzy took a breath, the emotions were threatening to overwhelm her, she wished that Will was with her.

"When you let George up to my bedroom two days ago, he saw I was asleep, he got underdressed and trying to have sex with me whilst I was sleeping, mom. He was lying behind me trying to force his penis into me. There is no other way to look at it, he was trying to rape me. I have laid charges against him for attempted rape, and it will go to court. You need to decide who you are going to support."

Her mother was sobbing, Lizzy put her arms around her mother, she hated doing this to her mother, but there was no other way.

"He came here, the day after he proposed to you, he begged me to help him win you back, he showed me the ring, he said he wanted to marry you, he was planning to buy a house, here in Merryton, close to us. He had a new job he was so excited about, and excited about marrying you and starting a family. After everything with Mary, I thought it would be so nice to have a wedding, some happiness. I thought if you gave him a chance, it would work out." She sobbed, "I just wanted you to be happy, the family to be happy, I had no idea he was like that, even now I just remember how sweet and desperate he was, seemed. He cried for your love, to have you back, I believed him. I did not think he would hurt you. "

"My daughters, all of you, are my life, you must know that I would never knowingly hurt any of you." Her mother begged her.

"I do know, but I also know how George charms you, he knows what to say to you, he is a skilled manipulator. You cannot believe anything that comes out of his mouth or trust him with any of us. I fell for it the first time, but once he left, I was more aware of how he had handled me, handled us, my family to suit his own needs." Lizzy really needed her mom to see George for who he really was.

"I am really sorry Lizzy, especially about the other day, he said he just wanted to cuddle you, so that you would realise that he loved you. I did not realise you were naked, or that he would try and force himself on you. I don't think I wanted to face the truth about my role in what happened." Her mom was still sobbing but Lizzy could hear that she now believed her. She and her mother continued to hug each other and talk, Lizzy felt herself getting lighter as she connected for the first time in a very long time with her mother. It took a couple of hours, lots of tears and comforting but they both reached a point where they had said all they needed to say, and were just hugging each other.

"Matilida" her father was in the doorway, he walked over and put his arms around her. "We will do this together my love, we will protect our girls from men like Wickham. Your trusting nature is what makes you so wonderful but for our girls' sakes, we need to be vigilant." He nodded at Lizzy, indicating that she should leave, he would take it from here.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Lizzy message Will as she left her parents house.

[Hey, where are you?]

[Hey yourself. Believe it or not we are eating ice cream, at Gelato Emporium]

[Lydia?]

[Yes, you really do know your sisters]

[On my way. Please order me a Salted Caramel, single scoop]

[ 😊That is my favourite flavour too]

She smiled, put her hand into her jacket pockets and walked to Gelato Emporium, it was only ten-minute walk and it was cold enough that her ice cream would not have melted that much.

She was right, the ice cream was just soft enough to eat without being too slushy, but she desperately needed a coffee to warm her up afterwards, which resulted in everyone moving to the Coffee Grinder. Lydia was amusing Will and Richard with stories about their childhood, especially about Lizzy terrorising the neighbourhood. Every now and again Lizzy caught Will staring at her, with a odd look of pride on his face after Lydia had told another story about how much of a tomboy Lizzy was. She also saw the surprise on his face, when Lydia told him how she won Miss Junior Merryton when she had only entered on a dare from Charlottes brother. He smiled softly when Lydia showed him the picture she kept on her phone, Lizzy asked to look at the picture. It was taken 4 years ago, before George; she, Jane and Charlotte were going to a line dancing competition, her hair was long, reach down her back in curls almost to her waist. She had on a green silk halter neck top that made her eyes stand out even more than usual, and she was laughing, it was a good picture of her.

"I bet Jane must have won quite a few pageants." Richard said, not noticing the expression of pain on Marys face.

"Jane refused to do pageants, mother pressurised her no end, but she just would not. Mom also wanted Lizzy and Mary to do them, but they also refused except for that one time with Lizzy, but she hated every minute of it, and wanted to withdraw after she made it thought to the finals. She thought it was a joke. Mother was so happy when she won, Lizzy stormed off the stage and mother forced her back up to accept her sash and crown." Lydia loved talking about her family, after Mary got sick she realised that she was lucky to have a family like hers, things that she had hated doing before, were now viewed as precious and special, she was terrified of losing her sister to this odious disease and would do everything in her power make her sister happy.

She smiled smugly at her phone, then handed it to Richard.

His face broke into a smile and he looked up at Mary. "That is beautiful!" he said looking at Lydia, his grin getting smugger. Lizzy leant over and took the phone, Will peered over her shoulder, it was a pictures of Mary, taken before her hair fell out, they had gone on a family holiday to the beach. Mary was sitting on a rock looking out to sea, her long hair blowing in the wind, she looked like a siren. Lizzy held the phone up so that Mary could see what they were looking at. She blushed and looked down at her tea.

"It is a beautiful picture of you Mary." Lizzy said gently to her sister, "At some stage you are going to have to accept that you are a beautiful woman."

"True that" Richard concurred with Lizzy.

"Can I look at your other pics Lydie?" Mary asked her sister.

"Sure, there are some nice family ones on there." Lydia

Richard moved closer to Mary to view the pics, or at least that is what he was telling himself. Mary scrolled to the next picture; Jane talking to Charles at the fun run, the sun catching their hair creating a halo around them, her eyes looking up at him with adoration, a look that was mirrored on his face; Kitty holding some kittens, her face all scrunched up as she cuddled them to her neck; Charlotte putting makeup on Lizzy, getting ready for a night out, their laughter leaping out of the picture; Mr and Mrs Bennet, sitting hand in hand on their couch watching TV. Each picture told a story, the angle of the shot, the lighting, each expression captured was unique and perfectly reflected the person in the picture.

"Wow Lydia, I had no idea you were so talented. There are exceptional pictures, you should consider a career in photography. Lydia smiled so broadly and blushed, evidently pleased that they thought so highly of her pictures.

Mary scrolled to the next picture; Charlotte, Lizzy and Mary at Toms barbeque, slightly out of focus, with George Wickham photobombing the picture. Richard felt Mary shiver, and he had to agree, the expression on Georges face as he looked at the three girls was scary, there was lust, angry and something else, it made Richard feel sick to his stomach.

Mary handed the phone to Lizzy and Will, Richard imagined that the expressions on their faces were similar to his and Marys when they saw the picture.

"What?" asked Lydia, seeing their happiness fade away. Lizzy held the phone up. "Oh, I saw that one, I wanted to delete it but it gave me such a feeling of uncomfortableness, I thought I should keep it…I am not even sure why."

"I am glad you did." Said Lizzy, "not only is it a terrific picture, from an artistic point of view but it is also an accurate picture of George, if ever there was one, not the smiling, charming façade he shows the world."

"Do you think it is safe to go home yet? "asked Kitty, "I need to get some school work done for my project."

"I think so, Dad took over and made me leave, and he always knows how to calm her down, especially when we are not there." Lizzy replied, her parents had been through so much, but they still loved each other and their daughters, she knew that as a family they were lucky.

"I don't want to be out of line or insensitive, but can we agree to all avoid George Wickham, if you see him, do not engage or try and confront him, rather just call Officer Norfolk and tell him where Wickham is." Richard advised the group, looking specifically at Mary, Kitty and Lydia. He knew Jane would be wherever Charles was, Lizzy and Will would be together, but the three younger girls were more vulnerable. He wished he could stay at their house with them, he would be a great deterrent for Wickham.

The girls nodded in agreement, suggesting themselves that they should go out together where possible, or with a friend. Richard offered to walk them home quickly whilst Lizzy and Will went to get groceries to make dinner for Charlotte.

On the walk over Lydia and Kitty walked a bit faster than Mary and Richard, talking nineteen to the dozen about school work that was due soon. Richard watch Mary as they walked next to each other, he wanted to take her hand, tell her it was going to be okay; realising that he did not fill that position in her life, he felt sad, sad and angry, angry at himself, but he was not sure why.

Mary started at the ground in front of her, very aware of the man next to her. She wanted him to hold her hand or put his arm around her, knowing this was a useless desire, men like Richard did not like girls like her, he probably dated models or the like; not half dead musicians.

Each one wrapped in their own misery, neither one feeling brave enough to be vulnerable to the other.


	24. Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

When they arrived back at Netherfield, it was to a very serious Jane, Charles, Theo and Louisa; all of them looked as if their favourite relative had died. After Charles told them about Caroline was not too far from the truth.

The psychiatrist had requested that Charles come and see him, Jane and Charles had driven through to Gracechurch Mental Care Facility, where the psychiatrist told them that his initial diagnoses was that Caroline had schizophrenia; he would run some more tests with his mental health care team, but he was quite sure that the results would confirm this, he also suspected a degree of bi-polar but that would take more time to ascertain. The manifestations were in her strong belief that she and Will had an epic romance, despite evidence to the contrary, not exposing Caroline to Will for an extended period of time would help her, and his team to restructure her thinking to a point where she could acknowledge the truth. He could not say why she had started having these episodes, it could be a head trauma or severe shock, the sad news was that it was not curable, but it was treatable. At present she would be kept in, there were workshops that they did with patients to work through their delusions, which sometimes yielded great success, as well as sessions with the psychiatrist, and medication. Caroline would be on medication for the rest of her life but if she reacted well to the program offered, she would be able to be released to live a relatively normal life.

There was stunned silence, "I am so sorry Charles." Lizzy felt so bad for the man, she felt a bit responsible, if she and Will were not together Caroline might have held it together a bit longer.

"Thanks Lizzy, but it is not your or Wills fault, she could have cracked at any time." Charles was quite pragmatic.

"Let's make dinner, before Charlotte gets here and we can only offer her raw chicken and vegetables" Jane broke the gloom in the room.

"I have an awesome chicken recipe with mayonnaise" Louisa offered, and with that the three ladies moved into the kitchen. Lizzy poured everyone a glass of wine, the guys settled in the living area to watch some sport, Lizzy gave them their drinks, gave Will a kiss and joined Jane and Louisa in the kitchen.

"Louisa, we are here for you with this whole Caroline thing." Jane put her arm around Louisa, "this must be so tough for you."

"To be honest, I am glad it has a name, rather than she is just out and out crazy." Louisa said, "I am not sure I want Caroline back in our lives, mine and Theo's, I know that sounds horrible, she is my sister, there was a time when we were inseparable, but after our father died she just became someone else, I suppose that might be the traumatic event that triggered this but we all lost our father that day, Charles and I, not just Caroline, but she made it all about her. Charles had to step up and take over the running of the company and taking care of our family." Louisa sighed, "Please can we talk about something else?"

"Of course, now show us how to make your mayonnaise chicken." Lizzy changed the topic. The topics of conversation stayed light during the meal preparation, Louisa whipped up her signature dish, Jane made a crispy vegetable stir fry, and Lizzy made a salad to round off the meal, she also made some lemon slices, knowing that Will had a weakness for lemon sweet things.

When Charlotte arrived, the smell of the chicken had filled the whole house, with a hint of lemon from the dessert. Jane had set the table, adding some flowers from the garden to the centre piece, and candles to add atmosphere.

Charlotte joined the ladies in the kitchen as they added the finish touches to dinner, Lizzy told her the events of the last few days, Charlottes shock was evident when she heard about George, she had initially like George previously, but became wary when she noticed how he was isolating Lizzy from her friends, she was glad when he left, even gladder when she realised that Lizzy did not mourn his leaving. She barely knew Caroline, outside of the ridiculous comment she made at the Cancer Awareness event, and then when she pitched up Vibes declaring Will to be her boyfriend; she did not know Caroline well enough to have an opinion either way, but she felt sorry for the family, it was not going to be an easy road. She was also interested to hear how Lizzy and Will had gotten together, Lizzy gave her most of the details but obviously there were some details she did not share, not even with Jane.

Charlotte was introduced to Richard, and everyone sat down to eat, despite the cloud about Caroline, dinner was quite lively and filled with laughter, mainly because Richard and Charles were dishing the dirty on Will in his younger days. Charlotte and Lizzy decided to even the playing field and share a few little Jane stories, which had Charles looking at her as if she was just the cutest thing he had ever seen.

Charlotte was pleased to spend time with her friends again, but also realised that in just over a week, everything had changed. The biggest change was Lizzy, gone was the wary look that haunted her eyes and she was no longer constantly on her guard; when she looked at Will her whole being lit up. Charlotte knew that Lizzy had not told her everything, after all their years of friendship Charlotte could tell. Charlotte was happy for her friend, very happy for her friend but sad for herself, because she was single, and her two best friends Jane and Lizzy had met wonderful men who loved them totally.

She could not help but cry on her way home, she had wondered about Richard, having met him for the first time that evening, but she got the distinct feeling his heart was engaged elsewhere.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Mary had headed straight to bed after they got home, her head still hurt, and she did not feel like being sociable, even with her family. She also needed time to think about her feelings for Richard. She had dated before but had never allowed herself to feel. Growing up almost being ignored had taught her to create a wall between her and other people, not allow herself to need anyone or want anything from anyone. Falling sick had changed a lot in her life, and for the first time in her life, people were there for her. Lizzy was the one person who had been there for her, but with the constant demands from her mother, and then George, they had not been as close as in previous years; until now. Even if Richard had not been at the cabin, she knew that she would still have feel welcome and part of the group, she would have gone with them to Netherfield if Richard had not been there and if her mother was not so insistent that she come home; she was not up for that fight.

For the first time in a long time Mary felt lonely, in previous years she would crawl into Lizzy's bed when she felt like this, so she decided to do just that, Lizzy would not mind. Grabbing her bag, she went to Lizzy's room and crawled into the bed she felt calmer, she could smell her sister, and in a way feel her. She fell asleep almost immediately.

She woke up a few hours later, her headache had returned in full force and she was parched. She took her medication out of her bag, noticing a bottle of water next to the bed she was glad she did not have to get out of bed. She took the medication and waiting for the relief it would provide.

Ten minutes later she was sweating and felt totally nauseous. She pulled out her phone and called Lizzy, she could just call her parents but again she just wanted to avoid her mother's hysteria.

"Hello, Elizabeth Bennets phone, Elizebeth cannot come to the phone right now but if you leave a message I will make sure she gets back to you" a decidedly not Lizzy voice answered the phone.

"Richard?" Mary was confused. "Why are you answering Lizzys phone?"

"Mary? Lizzy left her phone down stairs, and I am not brave enough to go to the room to give it to her. I am still young and innocent." Richard laughed

"Please could you call her, I need her" Mary was feeling grim, and thought that it was just a matter of time before she passed out.

"What's wrong Mary? Have you been drinking? You are slurring, and I can barely hear you." Richard was concerned

"Not drinking, just took my meds and feel so sick, need Lizzy, don't tell parents, too much…" Marys voice trailed away.

"Mary? Mary!" Richard called desperately

He ran up to Wills room and banged on the door "Lizzy! Will! There is something wrong with Mary, I am going to her house."

A very sleep befuddled Will opened the door, an anxious Lizzy looked from behind him, they had obviously been sleeping.

"What do you mean somethings wrong with Mary?" Lizzy asked, quickly becoming alert.

"She phoned you, your phone is downstairs, so I answered when I saw it was her, she did not sound well, slurring her voice." Richard replied, I will get the car out, you guys get dressed."

"What is going on? What's wrong with Mary?" Jane and Charles appeared in the passage, Janes face filled with concern.

"I don't know, but something is wrong. I am going to take Lizzy and Will over there, perhaps you guys can meet us at the hospital and get the paperwork started." Richard took charge, his military training coming to the fore.

Richard broke several traffic rules getting to the Bennet house; he did not care he just wanted to get to her.

Lizzy let them into the house, they all agreed on the way over that they would not wake the rest of the family until they knew what was going on; common sense dictated that Will as the medical person lead the three upstairs. Alarmed to find Mary's bedroom empty, Lizzy indicated to her room, she remembered that Mary often came to her when she needed company.

On finding her in Lizzy's bed barely conscious, Will immediately started to take Marys vitals, her body temperature was elevated, her breathing was shallow, her pulse erratic, he was concerned. As he checked her eyes, he noticed her pupils were fully dilated, like she had ingested a stimulant or recreational drug, her normal meds would not induce a reaction like this.

"Going to get sick" Mary murmured.

Lizzy grab the bin next to her bed, Will helped her sit up, got violently ill, then promptly passed out again. Will laid her back on the bed.

"We need to get her to a hospital, there is no time to wait for an ambulance, we will take her now." Will stood up and looked at Lizzy "I think she has somehow taken a recreational drug or a date rape drug."

"What?" Richard and Lizzy spoke at the same time, trying to keep their voices down but the implications of what Will had said was enormous.

"We can talk about it in the car, let's focus on getting her to the hospital." Will was very level headed, aware that both Lizzy and Richard were emotionally attached to Marys condition.

Richard ran down to the car while Will picked Mary up, being careful to keep a blanket wrapped around her. Lizzy gathered toiletries, pyjamas and Marys bag with her meds, and followed Will down stairs, closing and locking the door behind them. She would let her family know when they had a better idea of what happened. She could not drop a bomb like this on them.

Will carefully placed Mary on the back seat, indicating that Lizzy should sit with her, placing Mary's head on Lizzy's lap once she was in the car; he climbed into the front passenger seat and reach over to take Marys wrist and take her pulse again. "Lizzy, phone the hospital, tell them we are on the way with a young female, 19 years old, cancer patient with a suspected date rape drug ingestion, raised body temperature, erratic pulse and dilated pupils; they can prepare for our arrival."

Richard pulled the car out the moment Wills door closed, his hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white, his face was grim. As Lizzy ended her call to the hospital he demanded "You need to explain the date rape drug comment Will."

"All of the symptoms presented indicate a recreational or date rape drug, I cannot imagine Mary engaging in recreational drugs in her condition, so the only other logical conclusion. How and when would be the next questions and unfortunately only Mary can answer that." Will knew what he said would distress Richard and Lizzy, he was watching Lizzy's face as he told them.

"We were with Mary the whole afternoon, she had no plans to go out, she told me she was tired and would sleep when she got home." Richard started to plot a timeline in his head. "No one could drug her at the Grind or Vibe, we were there all of the time, so it had to have happened after she got home."

"How is that possible?" Lizzy asked

"We just walked into your house and out, no-one in your house is any the wiser Lizzy." Will said quietly, know that what he just said would add more to her current distress.

Pulling up at the hospital, Will jumped out, calling over the small group of ER staff standing in the entrance, assuming they were waiting for them. Mary was placed on a gurney, as Will debrief the team, who started to attached monitors and set up a drip.

Mary started to murmur and regain a bare moment of consciousness, "Mary, can you hear me?" Will asked.

"Tired, feel sick." Mary muttered.

"Sleep little one, you are safe." Will said to her softly. Lizzy felt her inside turn to mush.

"Sorry to intrude Lizzy, but we need to talk." Dr Bernard had arrived. "We are going to have to test her blood, and as it does not fall within the scope of the cancer or treatment thereof, I am going to need your permission to run tests for date rape substances. I also need to know how she ended up like this" He was looking from Will to Richard.

"We don't know yet, we were just focussing on getting her here." Lizzy answered, realising that both Will and Richard were offended at what the doctor was suggesting.

"I have no idea how her body is going to react to this, I have never had a situation like this. We are going to keep her in for at least 24 hours, until we are 100% certain the drug has worked its way out of her system, and that there are no lasting side effects." Dr Bernard was concerned.

"We can almost certainly say that she ingested the drug at home, about an hour ago" Richard said.

Everyone looked at him.

"She phoned me when she started feeling sick, so that would be roughly 20 to 30 minutes after ingesting the drug, and it took us about 30 minutes to get her here." He shrugged, he had already determined a basic timeline in his head. "It had to have happened at her house, she was going to sleep, so I imagine she fell asleep, in Lizzy's bed for some reason, woke up and had something to eat or drink, so my logical conclusion is that that is where we start looking."

"I would say something to drink, she wakes up thirsty so a juice, water or tea." Lizzy offered.

"That makes sense, we can start in Lizzy's room, and work out from there to Marys room and the kitchen." Will added.

"I am going to stay with her, so that she does not wake up alone, and to keep her safe. My gut says Wickham had his hand in this, not targeting Mary, but she is caught up in this now. You two go and see if you can find the source. No matter what it is do not handle it directly. Get some surgical gloves, seal and bag anything you find. I will get it to a lab to test." Richard instructed, feeling comfortable in his area of expertise.


	26. Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

As they walked into the bedroom Lizzy's eyes fell on an almost full bottle of still water next to her bed. Could it be that easy? Mary did not normally drink that brand of water nor was it one that they kept in the house, Mary also preferred sparkling to still, and Mary had not bought any water that day when they were out. She put her hand into a bag, engulf the bottle in the bag and inverted it over the bottle.

Will had been silent but had nodded in agreement. Then he said "I think that is it but we should just look around, just in case"

After twenty minutes, and not finding any other liquids, glass, cups, mugs or food stuffs, they agreed that the bottle seemed the likely culprit.

"What do we do with it now?" Lizzy realised she had no clue what to do now.

"We give it to Richard, he will have it tested" Will said

"How does Richard know what to do?" Lizzy was starting to come out of the mental fog induced by the whole evening's excitement. Will looked uncomfortable, he would have to make a choice.

"Would you be prepared to wait and ask Richard that?" he asked, not wanting to lie to Lizzy but also not wanting to betray his cousin.

"Okay, but will he tell me?" She asked

"I don't know, but at least I won't have to lie to you." Will replied.

She smiled, took his hand, and they left the house. Will was amazed, firstly that she just trusted him on this, and secondly that they had now twice gone into Lizzys parents house without any of the occupants being aware. His amazement turned to concern and once they were out of the house and in the car, he turned to Lizzy. "Do you realise that all one needs in a key to go in and out of your house undetected?"

Her eyes grew large, "Oh my" she jumped out of the car and started lifting rocks in the garden.

Will got out of the car "What are you doing?"

"The spare key, George has always known where we keep it." She panicked. "Got it!" she held the key up, then pulled it close to her face, looking at it very carefully. "This is not our key!" She got up and went to the front door, the key worked, the door opened. She quietly pulled the door closed again and locked it.

Walking over to Will, she was still inspecting the key "This key is a copper colour, our key was silver, and I don't remember anyone mentioning changing the key. All of our keys are the same copper colour." She slid into the front passenger seat and retrieved her own keys, holding one on the bunch up next to the imposter key – the colour difference was obvious. "This is not our key"

The implications hit both at the same time, someone, presumably George Wickham, had a copy of the Bennet house key. Allowing him access at anytime he felt like it.

"We cannot drive off and leave your family defenceless Lizzy." Will said softly, not wanting to scare her more than she was already.

"No, we are going to have to wake my parents, tell them about the keys and about Mary; there is no avoiding it." Lizzy felt the dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

With that they both returned to the house, Will went to the kitchen and switch on the kettle. Lizzy went up to her parent's bedroom.

Matilda and Thomas sat on the couch, coffee in hand, both their faces white at Lizzy's disclosure. She had put both keys on the table, gotten Mary and Kitty's key chains from the peg, and put them beside the other keys; there was no question, the one key was different to the others.

"Maybe one of the girls lost theirs and replaced it with this one?" her mother offered, the reality making her sick to her stomach. She had trusted the wrong man, and now her girls were paying the price.

"We can ask them, but I am sure they would have told us, Lydia definitely would have moaned about it first, Jane and Marys consciences would not allow them not to tell us, even Kitty would tell us, even if it was in the most distracted way, she cannot keep secrets at all." Her father reasoned.

"I will change the lock on the front and the back door, first thing this morning." Will spoke "I think we must also look at installing a burglar alarm. We cannot take any chances with your family."

"Thank you Will, I cannot believe it has come to this!" Matilda wailed.

"Do you think we should let others know about this? Our friends and neighbours should not be left defenceless." Thomas had started to think bigger than just his family. "We have just built up a lot of team spirit with the various fund raisers, to let George take advantage of other families would totally destroy that."

"Yes, I think you need to speak to Tom, Mr Lucas and Uncle Philips; as a lawyer Uncle Philips will know the ramifications of letting people know, or rather how to let people know without resulting in a slander or defamation court case. Mr Lucas is a respected member of our community, anything he shares will be considered gospel. Tom has arranged a job for Wickham and has him staying in his home, that puts his family at risk." Lizzy understood what her father meant, the town had stood by them, from the first moment Marys illness was diagnosed until now, people had given lifts, dropped off meals, given Lydia and Kitty extra lessons when they missed school, attended fund raising events, send cards and offered words of support and comfort to each member of the Bennet family. They were part of something bigger than just the Bennet's and now was the time to prove it.

The sun was starting to rise as Will and Lizzy returned to the hospital. In Marys room they found Richard sitting on a chair next to Marys bed, his hand holding hers, his head resting on the bed, fast asleep, Marys arm reaching across her body so that her other hand rested on top of his head. She was also asleep.

"Rich" Will shook Richards shoulder gently.

"Uh" Richard started to lift his head, became aware of Marys hand, reached up with his free hand and took her hand off his head, still hold the hand he sat up, stretching his spine. His movement woke Mary, a soft smile appeared on her face when she saw Richard next to her bed, he missed it because he was looking at Lizzy and Will, and the bag in Lizzy's hand.

"Mary, how are you feeling?" Lizzy moved over to her sister, handing the bag with the bottle to Richard.

"Terrible, I must have picked up a stomach bug or something. I woke up last night feeling thirsty, I took my meds and a short while later I felt as if I had been spinning around for hours. That is when I phoned you…you did not answer." She looked at Richard, "You answered, that is the last thing I remember, why am I in hospital?"

"Did you eat anything before you went to sleep or after you woke up?" Richard asked

"No, I ate a sandwich at Vibes and was still full." Mary was looking at each of them in turn.

"Did you drink anything? Alcohol, coffee, water…" Richard was trying not to scare her.

"I took my medication with the water in the bottle next to Lizzy's bed, I did not think she would mind, the bottle had not been opened or anything, and I will replace it." Mary was starting to get concerned.

"Its okay Mary, we are just trying to determine what made you sick." Lizzy reassured her sister.

"What are you not telling me?" Mary demanded, looking at Richard who was trying to study the bottle in the bag without arousing her suspicions.

"We think you ingested a date rape drug accidentally." Will told her, looking at Lizzy and Richard "We cannot hide it from her and it is easier to just have it out in the open so that we can deal with it."

Lizzy nodded in agreement

Mary gasped "How? Everything I ate and drank was with one of you or Kitty and Lydia, except the water and that was in a sealed bottle."

Richard turned the bottle upside down and turned it, then he squeezed it softly, a short burst of water came out of the cap of the bottle. Richard carefully slid the bag off from around the cap of the bottle and inspected it closely. "There is a small puncture in the cap, like a syringe needle."

"Wickham!" Lizzy exclaimed, her emotions boiled over. "I am going to hurt him I am going to hurt him so badly, he will pray for death!"

Will put his arms around her, "No, this time we take everything to the police, he had gotten away with too much now. If his finger prints are on this bottle we have him."

"Er, no. Unfortunately, not. We need to be able to place him and the bottle together within a reasonable timeframe prior to Mary drinking it or it is appearing in Lizzy's room." Richard rubbed the back of his neck as he broke this news to them. "Do you remember it being in your room prior to Wickham trying to rape you? Do you remember it being there after your father ordered him out of the house?" Richard was looking at Lizzy.

She shook her head. "It was not there when I went to sleep, but I cannot remember if it was there when I woke up, or when I got my stuff for Netherfield the next day."

"It was there when we went to get your stuff for Netherfield." Will spoke up, "I was going to put it in your bag, but you zipped it and left so quickly that I just left it."

"That is good, but unfortunately that window is too big. And I supposed you don't have a hidden camera in your bedroom Lizzy?" Richard asked, fake leering at Lizzy waggling his eye brows.

The attempt at humour relieved a bit of the tension in the room. Richard turned to Mary, how are you feeling now? It can take up to twenty-four hours for all of the symptoms to work their way out of your system. With the cancer it could take longer.

"We need to get the bottle tested, and when we have Marys blood test results, we need to log a case; we can only mention Wickham as a suspect we cannot conclusively accuse him." Richard decided it was time to get things moving. He reached into his jacket and took out what looked like an evidence bag, put the bag with the bottle into the evidence bag and sealed it. He walked out of the room as he took his phone out of his pocket.

Will and Lizzy spent a bit more time with Mary, after a while Mary said she was tired. Knowing that she would be, Lizzy kissed her softly on the cheek, "Take care Mary Moo." Using their childhood nickname for her sister, Lizzy and Will left.

Bumping into Richard as they walked out the door. "I have sent the bottle for testing, both for finger prints and contents, we will get a good idea of how much Mary ingested from the amount of the drug in the bottle and the amount of the drug in her blood test results. If Wickham's prints are on the bottle, he is a viable suspect, especially if Mary's are the only other prints. If there are more prints, then we are back to square one." Richard updated them.

"How do you know where to send it? Or how it all works? What have you not told us Richard?" Lizzy was curious, she trusted Richard, but she did not like not knowing.

"Can we get through this whole Wickham thing, and then I will tell you and Mary the full truth. Mary already has a suspicion but has not asked out right." Richard asked, his face begging for understanding,

Will looked surprised at Richards admission that Mary already knew; he must not have been paying attention; looking at Lizzy he smiled, who could pay attention when they had Lizzy in their life.

"Okay, I agree, and you cannot back out of it." Lizzy waggled her finger at Richard.

"I am going to stay with Mary. I don't trust Wickham, even with Mary in the hospital. If he finds out she ingested the water instead of you, Lizzy, there is no telling what he will do." Richard responded.

Lizzy stared at him. "What?"

"The water was meant for you! He must have put the water there when he got into your room, with you asleep he probably thought he would try his luck, and if not he would return later, hope you would drink the water." Richard explained his logic.

"I don't drink bottled water, not that brand or still. It is either tap water or sparkling water if it is in a bottle, he never remembers that, like he never remembers how I take my coffee." Lizzy sighed.

"Let's go, it has been a long night and it will be an even longer day if we don't get some sleep, and I still want to do the locks at your parents house, if you don't mind contacting the alarm companies and arranging one for them. I will pay for it." Will could feel the tiredness creeping up on him.

"You don't have to do that." Lizzy countered, pleased that he wanted to but feeling that she should, it was her family after all.

"No, this is all because of Wickham, had I done the right thing in the first place, none of this would be necessary, and Mary not be in that hospital bed right now!" Will was upset, his guilt was getting stronger.

"You listen here, and you listen well Mr William Darcy…You are not responsible for the evil perpetrate by that man, he and he alone is to blame for what he had done!'

Richard, Lizzy and Will turned around in surprise, there was Mary, standing in her hospital gown, handing onto her IV stand as if her life depended on it, admonishing Will.

"I am so going to marry this woman!" Richard declared, walking over to Mary, slipping his one arm around her waist, taking the IV pole with the other, he guided her back into the room. "I have never met a woman like you Mary Bennet, and as soon as you are out of this hospital, I am taking you out on a date, for supper, like I should have done when I first saw you!"

Will and Lizzy looked at each other, grinning from ear to ear like teenagers. "Took him long enough." Said Will, "it only took me twenty-four hours to kiss you, it taken him all of three days to ask her out!"

Lizzy threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Mr Darcy let's get those locks and the alarm sorted so that you can take me to bed!"

"Yes Madam!" Will kissed her back, took her hand and they walked out of the hospital.


	27. Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

After a trip to the hardware store, two replaced locks later, and the promise of an alarm installation the following day, Lizzy and Will tiredly made their way back to Netherfield. Lizzy had considered staying with her family, but both her mother and her father thought it would be safer for all if she was with Will. George had never been to Netherfield, it was a lot harder to break into and Will would protect her with his life, it also mean that George was more likely to leave the family alone if Lizzy was not at home. Kitty and Lydia said that they would got to the hardware store with Denny to get new replacement keys for everyone. A spare key would be left at the Lucas's and the Philips rather than under the rock, that was just too risky.

Will sent Lizzy up to shower, whilst he made sandwiches and hot chocolate for them; Lizzy decided not to spend too long in the shower, and once done, she slipped into a white negligee set she had snuck into her bag earlier. The sheer white baby doll top encased her breasts, see through and not leaving anything to the imagination, flaring out from below her breasts just below her thong, thong was a generous term for the tiny slip of lace that barely covered anything. She slid onto the fluffy blanket on top of the bed, just as she heard Wills footsteps in the passage, she lay back on the bed and slid a hand between her legs.

Opening the door, balancing the tray on one hand, Will almost dropped the tray at the vision that was on his bed. He placed the tray next to the bed and lent over, his hand on her shoulder, following her arm down to her hand, he kissed her lips. Pulling away he said, "I will be right back!"

Lizzy sat up in alarm, that was not the reaction she was expecting. She heard the shower, and lay back, she would not have minded if he showered after! And that was her last thought, until she felt a warm body next to hers, "Lizzy, I think we should eat before we sleep" Wills voice was low and seductive, how does he do that, he is inviting her to eat and it was as sexy as all get out!

She sat up, there was a blanket over them, and he was bringing the tray over. They ate quickly, his eyes were roaming up and down the parts of her body not covered by the blanket, and she realised that he was in fact naked, the blanket strategically covering but not hiding his attraction to her. She smiled as she finished her sandwich and took her hot chocolate.,

"That smile is naughty Lizzy" Will purred at her, he looked contented just sitting there naked, covered by just a blanket, staring at her almost naked body, drinking his hot chocolate.

She smiled, put her cup on the tray, and slowly inched the blanket off his body. She sighed delightedly as the last of the blanket fell off his body. Leaning over she took him in her mouth, it was his turn to sigh, and put his cup down.

Later as they snuggled together under the blanket, each one sated both sexually and gastronomically, Will rained light kisses across Lizzy's face. "Would you mind waiting until we are married before losing our virginity?" he asked.

She smiled lazily up at him. "Will, I don't mind waiting, but I also don't think we should restrict ourselves, if our hearts agree, we will know, married or not."

He kissed her mouth, "Thank you my Lizzy."

When they woke up they had slept most of the afternoon. The last few days had been so topsy turvy they were really out of sync.

"I know we have just slept but I think we need to have supper at a normal hour, then try and be in bed by latest ten tonight. Just to get our body's used to normal days. We can pop over now to the hospital to see Mary before supper." Will suggested.

"Yes, I like that plan." Lizzy concurred.

Charles and Jane joined them, having decided to let her sleep off the effects of the drug rather than visit her earlier in the day. They stop off at the 24 hour to get Mary a cinnamon bun and some tea, and a burrito and coffee for Richard.

The room was dimly lit by the light from the passage, but they could still the sleeping forms of Richard and Mary, he was lying on the bed with Mary in his arms, her head resting on his chest; Grim playing on the TV, a box set of the series was next to the tv with various discs lying on the cupboard.

Lizzy gently stroked Marys hair "Mary" she called softly. Mary moved her head, her eyes opened slowly and then she shot up, staring at Richard, her mouth in an 0; she blushed as she looked at her sisters, Will and Charles.

"We must have fallen asleep." She muttered, her embarrassment obvious.

"What do you mean WE must have fallen asleep?" Richard growled, opening his eyes, and giving everyone a cheek grin; pulling Mary back down towards him. She resisted slightly but without much resistance lay back down in his arms; her face still pink.

"How are you feeling Mary?" Will asked.

"Much better, the nausea is totally gone, and I don't feel so lethargic. I should be back to normal tomorrow morning. The doctor wants to run a few tests to make sure there is no secondary damage or effects from the drug." Mary was coherent, everyone was relieved. "Thank you, guys, for coming for me, making sure I was alright." She said "It was very scary to feel like that when I was on my own. I would hate to have woken up and had no clue why or what happened."

"You need to thank Richard, if he had not answered my phone and realised so quickly something was wrong…" Lizzy could not bare to think of her sister going through that alone.

Mary and Richard looked at each other, there was definitely a moment happening there. Lizzy was sure Richard was blushing.

"When are they releasing you?" Jane asked, realising that it was going to get very awkward very soon.

"Tomorrow after lunch, which is quite sad, because the food here is as bad as always" Mary replied.

"Oh" Will held out the food and drinks, finding Mary in Richards arms had made him totally forget.

"Yum" Richard helped Mary sit up right as he sat up himself, the two of them fell on their food as if it was their last meal.

When Charles, Jane, Lizzy and Will left the hospital two hours later, it was with very mixed feelings. Lizzy was worried about the developments between Mary and Richard, she did not know Richard that well, and although Will said that Richard would not toy with Mary, she could not help be concerned for her sisters heart, Mary had never really fallen in love before, and Lizzy could see that Mary was well on her way to being quite in love with Wills mysterious cousin. She liked Richard, he was good for and to Mary, but was he there for the long haul?

Will thought about the doctored water that was actually meant for Lizzy, how much further would George go to get Lizzy, and to what purpose? Was he out for revenge on Will or was it a fatal attraction to Lizzy?

Charles and Jane were focussed on each other, Jane knew that Charles was still very affected by the situation with Caroline, he felt partially responsible because he had not noticed how bad she had become.

Richard had selected to remain behind at the hospital again. He needed to talk to Mary and together they needed to decide how to proceed further; he either needed to walk away now, as soon as she was out of hospital or he must commit fully to a relationship with her; both prospects scared him - a lonely life without Mary or a life of challenge with Mary, from his work point of view.

As he snuggled down with her on the narrow hospital bed, he could easily choose the second option without hesitation.

"Richard?" she murmured

"Yes, Mary Moo" he smiled as he used her nickname.

"Please don't leave tonight, don't leave me alone" she answered barely able to get the words out she was falling asleep so fast.

"I am here, until you go home I will be here." As he replied he realised she had fallen asleep.

Arriving back at Netherfield, the two couples were delighted to find that Theo and Louisa had made supper for everyone. Sitting down to a large tray of lasagne, freshly baked herb bread and salad, the three couples caught each other up on the day's events. Kitty and Lydia had dropped off new house keys for Lizzy and Jane at some stage that day, which Louisa gave to them.

Louisa had taken a trip to Gracechurch to see Caroline, she was glad that she had gone to see her sister, but remained firm in her opinion that for now, she and Theo would not be involved in Caroline's life. She did not say too much about what happened or what was said between her and her sister, and no-one really wanted to ask.

Everyone pitched in to clean up after supper, by mutual agreement everyone just went up to bed almost immediately after. It had been quite a roller coaster ride for the last few days and no-one wanted a late night.


	28. Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

Richard took Mary home the next day shortly after lunchtime, Will and Lizzy spent some time at her parent's house, catching up, ensuring that the alarm system was properly installed and that everyone knew how to use it both away and when at home.

The next few weeks passed without incident, Mary was recovering nicely with no remaining side effects or impact on her treatment. Richard was spending more time at the Bennet house than at Netherfield, losing more than one chess match to Thomas. Kitty and Lydia seemed determined to spoil Mary rotten and arranged a treat for her at least twice a week; a mani/pedi on the day she got home, a facial the day after that, a body massage at a salon, breakfast in bed. Between Richard and Denny, the girls did not go anywhere alone; Bennet house seemed full and busy.

Lizzy and William took full advantage of the 'boring' days, after visiting with the family briefly in the mornings, they would go for a walk or run, ending up at Netherfield, Will working remotely, attending Skype meetings and email to keep up with his workload. Lizzy started preparing herself to return to her studies, review the work she had already done, and making inroads on new study material. Their main goal was to get to know each other better, discovering new things about each other every day. Every now and again Lizzy felt as if she was being watched again, letting Will know; there were times he acknowledged feeling the same, but not always. She thought she might be a bit paranoid but with good reason, all thing considered.

Jane and Charles spend a lot of their time with Louisa and Theo, they had started working on the gardens at Netherfield, to add their own mark to the already beautiful gardens. Charles felt like he was really getting to know his brother-in-law for the first time, the shadow of Caroline now removed from their interactions.

Charles had also made a trip to Gracechurch to see his sister, he reported that she was doing well, she had responded to the medication better than expected, but the psychiatrist was concerned about her group work, she did not connect with any one in her group, or any of the medical professionals that facilitated the sessions. She did not participate in a meaningful way and would pass cutting remarks about the other patients. She had not mentioned Will or Lizzy since her first initial assessment, choosing to discuss her family in her individual sessions. She would be reassessed in three months' time, when a decision would be made as to whether or not she would be able to resume her normal life.

After three weeks things started to change. Will was having to go into his office to attend meetings and sort out staff matters, he did not like leaving Lizzy but it was unavoidable. He did the daily commute with surprisingly little effort and enjoyed coming home to Netherfield to a house filled with people, instead of returning to his empty, sterile condo in town; the highlight being seeing Lizzy every day.

He spoke to Georgiana almost every day, he and Lizzy had had several Skype calls with his sister. The only thing preventing Georgiana from joining them was Wickham, as yet he was still out there and evading the law. Will got angry when he thought about it, he wanted his sister here with him and Lizzy.

To everyone's surprise Richard had left to go back to work, neither he or Mary had said much about it. They seemed to be inseparable for over two weeks after Mary got out of hospital; then one day he came over to say goodbye, refused to answer any questions about Mary and left. Mary was equally quiet about it, but she did not seem heart broken or sad, she was her usual self. Lizzy was convinced that they had some kind of agreement, but she would let Mary come to her when and if she needed to talk about it, she knew it was futile to push Mary, she would just shutdown even more.

Mary had taken to coming over to Netherfield to spend time with Lizzy, even though Lizzy was studying, Mary would sit reading, occasionally she would be writing something, or doing stuff on her laptop. On the days she needed to be at the hospital, Lizzy would take her, and they would go for cinnamon buns and tea afterwards as was their tradition. It was during these times that Lizzy noticed that Mary texted a lot more than usual, and that she was quite content, one could almost say happy.

Jane and Charles continued with their relationship as if it had always been there, Will said it was just a matter of time before an engagement ring would appear. He noticed that this relationship was very different to Charles previous ones, he was way more invested on multiple levels, Jane was perfect for his friend, the week previous they had had a fight, a very short lived one as they could not stay mad with each other for long, it was also very politely civil, unlike the passionate exchanges Lizzy and Will had almost daily when they disagreed about something.

Theo and Louisa had returned to their own house, coming to Netherfield every second weekend to see their friends. Louisa had blossomed so much since they met her, she felt like another sister to the Bennet sisters, Lydia had formed quite an attachment to her, and Louisa was in turn very fond of Lydia. The change in Theo had been noticed since the day of the fun run, Will admitted that he had no idea Theo was such fun or so intelligent before, previously he had just gotten drunk every time they saw him.

The Bennet household had settled into a routine, Denny made himself available to the girls whenever they wanted to go out, he and Kitty spent a lot of time together, Matilda and Thomas could see another one of their daughters falling in love; Denny was a good man, they had seen him grow up with their daughters and he came from a good family. Thomas just wished it was not all happening at once, hoping that Lydia would wait a year or two before being romanced away.

Charlotte picked up Jane once a week from work and came to Netherfield for supper, it was normally a noisy and festive evening, everyone making or bringing something to contribute.

At one of these suppers Lizzy mentioned that she had to go to the university the next day to submit paperwork and collect study material, but Mary also had a hospital appointment; Charlotte said she had the day off, she would happily take Mary. Lizzy was reminded again how generous their town had been to her family during what was one of their hardest times. She hugged Charlotte extra hard when she left that night "Love you broken" she said as they parted.

"Love you broken too" Charlotte replied as she pulled out.

"Love you broken?" Will asked

"Love you to pieces" Lizzy smiled back "We started saying that in high school and it just stuck."

Charlotte and Mary had never been great friends growing up, but they had always gotten along. After Mary got sick Charlotte had stepped up and supported Mary and her family in so many ways, their friendship had grown along with that. Mary was pleased to spend some time with Charlotte without her sisters.

Arriving at the hospital they found Dr Bernard in a bit of a state, police men all over his consulting rooms.

"Mary I am so sorry, we are going to have to do your appointment in one of the other wings, there was a break in here last night and the police are still busy." The doctor was flustered "Oh, hello" he said looking at Charlotte, "I am Dr Bernard, Allan Bernard" he extended his hand.

"Charlotte Lucas, I am a friend of the Bennet's" Charlotte responded.

"Nice to meet you, sorry about the disarray." He indicated for them to follow him.

"What happened?" Mary asked

"Someone broke in to our rooms, took a lot of prescription pads and some client fiels." Dr Bernard sounded puzzled as he told them.

"Client field?" Mary was very curious.

"Yes, I don't want to alarm you but yours was one of them, we are taking this very seriously as it is a total breach of doctor patient confidentially and sets the hospital and myself up for law suits we can ill afford. ." Allan Bernard sounded stressed. "Here we are, Charlotte if you don't mind waiting out here, Mary and I won't be long."

Twenty-five minutes later they were done, he was happy with Mary's progress, especially considering the date rape drug incident but she was doing well, he was sure it was not long before he could announce Mary to be in remission. He walked the two ladies out, at the exit Mary got talking to her Aunt Philips, which gave Allan time to ask Charlotte if she would have coffee with him later that afternoon, Charlotte was over the moon, they swopped numbers and she drove Mary home with a happy grin on her face, and Mary teasing her the whole way.


	29. Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

After Mary got home she sent Richard a WhatsApp message, they had agreed that she would let him know how her appointment had gone. She also told him about the break in at the doctor office, especially because hers was one of the patient files that was stolen. She did not think the break in was random, her gut told her that this was Wickham and whatever it was it was not good for her family, especially Lizzy.

Lizzy was right, Richard and Mary did have an agreement, unlike Jane and Charles, and Lizzy and Will, they did not want their relationship to consume them, as they saw it. Mary wanted her space to get well and deal with her stuff, Richard needed to be able to do his job, which required him to be away for periods of time. He would come back as often as he could, they would text and email if his work allowed it. They did not deny that there were feelings from both sides, as hard as it was for Mary to believe that Richard liked her, he was, truth be told, crazy about her. Mary was more cautious, but after the date rape drug incident, she admitted to herself that she was pretty much on her way to falling in love with him. No man had ever rushed to her rescue like that or stayed at her side constantly whilst she needed someone. The men who came into her life, wanted to use her to get to know one of her sisters, normally Jane or Lizzy, but there had been a few for Kitty and Lydia; Mary had felt invisible to men, until Richard. He saw her, he really really saw her, Mary, not Lizzy or Janes sister, not the cancer patient, he saw her!

Richard was concerned when he heard about the break in, he agreed with Mary, her instincts were good, her powers of observation exceptional; this was not just some random crime. He got himself assigned to the case and came back to Merryton. Wickham had become a person of interest when the tests on the water bottle came back with his prints on it, Mary's prints were there, but Wickham's were the only other set of clear prints. The drug content of the water was high, Mary was considered lucky that she had not ingested all of the water in the bottle.

Rather than stay at Netherfield or the Bennet's, he hired himself a furnished apartment in the town centre, he needed to be able to come and go without having to explain himself, but he did give Mary a key, with an open invitation to stay there when and as she wanted. She loved the apartment mainly because he was there but also because it was quiet, unlike the Bennet house and Netherfield, which although quieter than the Bennet house, had moments of insanity, Lizzy and Will had taken to pranking Charles and Jane which resulted in a lot of yelling and shouting; Lizzy and Will also had crazy arguments that could get very heated, the last one resulted in Lizzy chasing Will around the house with a pillow because he would not agree that corporate greed was killing the world. They made up with an equally large amount of passion.

Richard was alarmed at how quickly he got used to having Mary around, for someone who was quite quiet, she had a big presence in the apartment, and when she was not there it seemed empty and forlorn, or rather he felt empty and forlorn. He kept thinking back to when Mary was in hospital and she asked him to sit on the bed and watch a series with her, he was expecting Downton Abbey or Gossip Girl, but she surprised him when it was Grimm. He had slipped onto the bed next to her and put his arms around her, it seemed so natural. After the first season, he had gotten up to change the disc and as he got back onto the bed, she had looked up at him, and without thinking he kissed her, at first it was a gentle explorative kiss, but it had developed into a deep passionate moment, where the heat between them was indescribable. At that moment he knew he was in trouble, she had intrigued him from the beginning but as he had gotten to know more about her, she was irresistible. His dating history was extensive, he had a type, blonde, leggy, easy and dumb; Mary was none of those, except maybe leggy, he had noticed that she had an incredible set of legs, well-shaped and toned, in fact her whole body was toned; he later found out that before she got sick she was a fan of High intensity Training workouts, and had been really fit.

Thus far they had just kissed, and for now, despite how his body reacted, that was as far as he was prepared to go. Mary was different for him, she was not just another shag.

Mary had dated a few times, she had had a boyfriend, but he fell in love with Jane, which ended that relationship and any ties with her family very quickly. She had never enjoyed kissing, someone shoving their tongue in her mouth was revolting, well it was until Richard kissed her, then she understood, it was sexy, intimate and created feelings she did not know she was capable of. She was glad that Richard had not pushed for more, because right now she was loving the kissing, even though it overwhelmed her sometimes with the sheer volume of emotions it brought with it.

Richard spent a lot of time at the hospital, talking to Dr Bernard, and his staff, gathering information about the break in; he chose Officer Norfolk as a case partner, Lizzy and Will had spoken highly of the young officer, they were proving right. He concerned about the stolen patient files, if it had just been prescription pads he would have put it down to desperate drug addicts, but the client files suggested something else was afoot. Officer Norfolk admitted that although he was not personally acquainted with George Wickham, he knew him on sight and by reputation; the reputation was open for interpretation depending on who you spoke to. June and Tom had nothing bad to say about him, he had stayed with them for a month, paid towards expenses; when he moved out he said he had found a place and once he was settled he and Lizzy would have them round for supper. June and Tom were surprised at the time, at the mention of Lizzy, the whole town knew about Lizzy and Will.

Dr Bernard and Charlotte were of totally the opposite opinion, neither one had anything nice to say about Wickham, now or from his previous stay in Merryton. Miles Norfolk shared their views, outside of the charges Lizzy had laid against him, and the incident with Mary where Wickham was a person of interest, he was not beyond investigating Wickham for this incident as well, at least until they could find Wickham and if Wickham could provide an alibi.

It was slog work for the two young men, basically following up on anyone mentioned in connection with Wickham in any way. They had been into some of the dodgiest dives on the outskirts of town, the creep industrial area, and the out of town trailer park; they always seemed to just miss him.

Their current lead was Sarah Younge, both Richard and Will were familiar with Sarah, she had been a volunteer at the hospital were Georgiana had been treated, Sarah had gotten Wickham into the hospital many times when he should not have been there. Richard and Officer Norfolk found themselves quite depressed visiting the trailer park again, it had an air of desperation and desolation, even the children seemed affected by the atmosphere, there was no running around, laughter or games, they just seemed to sit on the fences and stare at the people coming and going; it did not seem natural.

Richard banged on the trailer they had been directed to when they had asked after Sarah Younge at the office, he stood back waiting for her to answer, they could hear noises coming from inside so someone was home. The trailer door flew open, Sarah Younge looked very much worse for wear, a small baby on her hip, her clothes hanging on her rail thin frame, but the most eye catching thing was the livid bruises on her face and arms, her lip was split, her one eye swollen shut, the red ring around her neck testament to her having been strangled; fear radiated out of her good eye.

"You!" she exclaimed seeing Richard, "What do you want?"

"We are looking for Wickham" Richard actually felt sorry for the woman, even after what she exposed Georgiana to.

"I don't know where he is, and even if I did know, I would not tell you; if he found out he would come back and finish what he started or send someone to do it for him." She was defiant, but the air of fear around her grew.

"He did this to you and you won't help us find him?" Richard asked "You can lay charges against him, he can go to jail, just for what he did to you, not to mention the other charges against him."

"You don't know Wickham, you are still under estimating him, you and Darcy always have." She was looking around nervously now "Even if he goes to jail, he will still find away to hurt or kill me if I say anything."

"Why did he beat you up?" Officer Norfolk asked, hoping to gain her trust.

"He found out about George here" her voice had dropped, "He did not want children, not with me. With Darcy sister or that Elizabeth he is obsessed with, but not with me. I did not mean to fall pregnant, but when George was born, I could not give him up, so I fled to here, but he found me and punished me for disobeying him."

Richard felt his whole body go stiff, Georgiana or Lizzy, this was not about the two girls, this was about Will, George was trying to destroy Will emotionally.

"Are you sure you do not want to press charges?" Officer Norfolk asked again. "Maybe you have an idea where he could be? Or someone else who would know where he is?"

"No, and No, if he beats me up again, he will kill me, my child needs me, don't you understand that!" with that Sarah Younge retreated back into the trailer and slammed the door.

As they walked away Richard said "Lets get a plain clothes on surveillance here, or perhaps an undercover, Sarah Younge is in danger, and Wickham might come back to see her or the baby."


	30. Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

Will and Lizzy decided it was time for another weekend away at the cabin, a whole weekend this time. They contacted everyone and suggested the coming weekend. Mary and Lizzy would go up to the cabin and prepare so that everyone else could just go up there when they finished work.

Will was not happy with that idea, he did not want the two girls up there alone, he was still very aware that Wickham was still out there somewhere. Richard agreed with him, volunteering to go up with the girls.

They split the preparation into tasks which were assigned to each of the four couples. Jane did her normal 'project management', running a tight ship for operation weekend at the cabin. Charles was in awe of his girlfriend, normally so sweet and agreeable, until there was stuff to be done, then she was mistress in charge; he really like that, it was accompanied with some mental pictures that he shared with her at night when they went to bed; sleeping happen much later than night for them.

Will was nervous, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Lizzy was the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. It was scary, they had known each other for just over a month, almost two months, he could not remember a happier time in his life since his parents died. He wanted to propose to her this weekend, and then start introducing her to his family. He knew Lizzy loved him, he was just not sure she was in the same space as he was. He opened the ring box, it was his mothers ring, the rough uncut emerald set in gold, flanked with two small cut diamonds. He could see it on Lizzy's finger, complimenting her small hands. He closed the box and slide it into his overnight bag. Grabbing his and Lizzy's bags he took them out to the car, putting them into the boot, he got that feeling of being watched again, turning around as if he was taking a big breath of fresh air and stretching, he scanned the gardens, unfortunately there were far too many hiding places in the garden, but he did not spot anything obvious. He messaged Richard, who would be over shortly with Mary, he did not want to take any chances with Lizzy or Mary. He could hear Lizzy singing as she packed the food and drinks in the kitchen area, she sounded happy and relaxed, he decided not to mention it now.

A short while later Richard and Mary arrived at Netherfield. They would go up to the cabin in Lizzy's car, and Will would drive up with Charles and Jane after he had finished his Skype call with the office. Louisa and Theo would go directly to the cabin when they finished work. Richard transferred his and Marys bags to Lizzy pickup, he also felt as if they were being watched, it made him very uncomfortable. He indicated to Will that they should all go into the house, once indoors, he instructed them to go to the bedrooms and see if anyone or anything was visible in the garden from the upstairs windows. As Will followed Richard and Mary upstairs, he noticed a bulge under Marys jacket.

"Mary, are you packing?" he exclaimed.

Mary smiled at him over her shoulder, "If the sales man here feels the need to carry arms, I reckon it is a good idea for me to do so as well."

"I have been training her on handling firearms Will, with everything that has been going on I thought it wise. I am going to suggest it to you and Lizzy as well. Charles and Jane just don't strike me as the type. Louisa and Theo did a couple of courses last year, Theo enjoys spending time at the shooting range, so I know that at least one of them is carrying as well. "

"I am not sure how Lizzy will feel about that, it is not something we have discussed." Will was shocked, not horrifically so, it was just unexpected.

"How Lizzy will feel about what?" Lizzy came out of their bedroom

"I thought you were in the kitchen packing?" Will was confused.

"I just finished and came up to check that we had not left anything behind." She explained "you did not answer my question."

"I want you and Will to do a firearm handling course, with the view to carrying a firearm." Richard decided to play open cards.

"Oh"

Will was amazed that Lizzy said so little, she normally had an opinion one way or the other. He decided to leave it for now, they need to check from the upstairs windows.

"Try not to stand in the middle of the window, stand to the side, look for anything that looks out of the ordinary, a wheelbarrow that was not there before, a new bush. Lizzy you do your room, you should know that view quite well. Will do Jane and Charles room, Mary do Theo and Louisa's, I will do Caroline's and the spare rooms. Don't shout if you do or do not see anything, I am not too sure how sound carries to the gardens." Richard took charge. "Let's meet downstairs in ten minutes."

Lizzy and Mary made coffee, they gathered in the lounge, no-one spotted anything odd or anything that stuck out, Richard did not expect them to but felt that they should be safe rather than sorry.

As Lizzy sat down next to Will Richard yelled "Down on the ground, NOW" Will grabbed Lizzy and they fell to the floor as Richard threw himself over Mary.

Richards shout was followed almost immediately by a loud bang and shattering glass. As the noise stopped they stood up, each one checking the other for cuts. Richards actions seemed to have spared them injury. They looked at the damage, one of the large picture windows was smashed, a brick was lying on the lounge floor, a piece of paper was tied around the brick. Richard pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, asked Mary to take pictures of the brick, the window and the damages; after which he picked up the brick, undid the string keeping the paper on the brick and unwrapped the paper.

{This is not over. Georgie and Lizzy are mine, you cannot have them}

"I don't think a trip to the cabin is such a good idea." Lizzy was shaken, she seldom backed down from a fight, but this was starting to scare her.

Richard was bagging the brick, the string and the paper. He asked Mary to send the photos to his phone, he made a call, instructing the person on the call to come and retrieve evidence. He also requested two plain clothes officers at the house for the next 24 hours.

He got the tape measure from the kitchen, he and Will took the window dimensions, an order was placed with the local glass shop for delivery and installation later that day.

He then turned to the group, "We should go to the cabin, but you are not going to like my reasoning." He watched their faces.

"You are going to use us as bait" Lizzy said looking Richard squarely in the face.

"No, he is going to use YOU as bait." Will was angry.

"Calm down Will, it makes sense and quite frankly we all need this to end. I am tired of living in fear every minute of every day wondering when he is going to hurt me or one of my family or my friends, or you." Lizzy was determined. "What did you have in mind Richard?"

"Firstly, we do not eat or drink anything that has been stored at the cabin, not even the drinking water. We take everything up with us. I will have men stationed around the cabin, we won't be able to see them, I am going to bring in some very special operatives. No-one goes off alone, even if there is a fight, no storming off. We use the storm shutters, the moment night falls we close them, that ways no-one outside can see what is going on inside. We give the impression we are sleeping in the rooms, but we sleep in the lounge area. We take turns to keep watch." Richard started to make a list of everything they needed to do.

"I do not like this idea." Will said, casting a worried look at Lizzy, "I understand the need for it but I do not like it."

Lizzy moved next to him, slipping her arms around him she hugged him tightly, he reciprocated. Kissing her softly on the top of her head he kept his arms around her.


	31. Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

After the final items were loaded in the car, it was agreed that Richard would drive, Lizzy would navigate, and Mary would relax on the back seat.

They had just left town when Richard glanced at Mary in the rear-view mirror, her face was pale and panic stricken; Richard knew that if she was feeling ill she would have spoken up, he tried to catch her eye.

"Hy babe, are you okay back there, why don't you catch a nap?" he hoped she would give an indication of what was wrong.

"I am fine, Richie, I am worried I will get car sick if I lie down." Mary hoped Lizzy or Richard would pick up on her distress.

Lizzy turned around, Mary had never gotten car sick in her entire life, not even at the high of her chemo, but as she was about to question Mary, she saw Mary cast her eyes down, behind Lizzy's seat. "Oh sorry Mary Mae, I forgot about the car sickness thing." She changed Mary's nickname, so that Mary would know that she had noticed. She took out her phone, "I promised Charlotte I would let her and Bernie know when we were leaving town." She texted Richard and Will,

[There is something not right in the back of the car, I think someone or something bad is behind the front passenger seat.]

She waited until Richard had noticed the message, his phone was in the hands-free on the dash. He looked at Lizzy and then again at Mary in the rear-view mirror.

Lizzy started to sign at Mary, they had all learnt how when they were kids, she could not remember much but she remembered the alphabet. She signe E.

"Would you like to play a game to distract you?" Lizzy asked.

"Yes," Mary nodded her head. They were all in danger, George was in the car with them, he must be armed, otherwise Mary would have done something when she realised he was in the car.

"How about Never have I ever?" Lizzy suggested. Lizzy was trying to figure out how he got in the car, and how he concealed himself.

The bedding! They had piled all the bedding on that side of the car, so that Mary could just lie over it and be comfortable, while they were in the house earlier he must have snuck into the car and concealed himself under the blankets on the floor of the car.

"Okay" Richard agreed "I will start…"

While Richard was talking Lizzy indicated that she was going to slide her chair back, hopefully surprising and distracting George long enough for Richard to take control.

"Never have I ever made out with someone of the same sex" Richard started

"RICHARD!" Mary and Lizzy said together, as Richard nodded his head at Lizzy to go ahead.

She released her chair and slammed it backwards, seconds later Mary had pulled out her gun and rather than shoot George she bought the butt of her weapon down on the bridge of his nose, hard.

Richard brought the car to a complete stop, yelling at both girls to get out, as he ran around the vehicle with his gun drawn. Pulling the passenger door open, he trained his weapon on George, who was grasping at his face in pain. His own weapon lying in his lap.

Richard reached over and retrieved the weapon, instructing Lizzy to call Officer Norfolk and some back up. Keeping his eyes on Wickham, Richard said "Well done Mary, that was quick thinking."

Mary smiled nervously, she was not by nature a violent person but two of the people she loved were in danger, she had to do something, she reacted on instinct. She felt proud of herself, rather than get hysterical she had done something Lizzy would have done, if the roles had been reversed. She could see the pride in Lizzy's eyes. This is one story she would not mind her sister retelling.

Will arrived shortly after Officer Norfolk had taken George into custody. He was so relieved that everyone was okay, he had initially panicked when he got Lizzy's call until he heard the magical words "Wickham has been found and arrested." He swept Lizzy up in a big hug, spinning around with joy.

"Let's go to the cabin!" Richard shouted, everyone concurred and piled into the pickup. The drive up to the cabin was happy, everyone felt like a weight had been lifted off their lives, they no longer had to look over their shoulders.

"I will call off the extra protection, with Wickham safely locked away, we can get on with our lives" Richard proclaimed happily.

It did not take long to get everything into the cabin and stowed away. Will and Richard built a roaring fire, Lizzy and Mary made a mezze platter, so everyone could just help themselves as they got hungry. Richard and Mary started a chess game, Lizzy and Will went for a walk, rather Will have pestered Lizzy so much to go for a walk, she agreed just to make him stop. They walked back up to the lake, finding a nice big flat rock Lizzy sat down between Wills legs, leaning back onto his chest as he wrapped his arm around her.

"Lizzy?" Will started

"Yes, Will, what's wrong?"

"Can you…would you..consider, not right now, but in the future…settling down….long term, um, you know, like with me?" Will could not believe how nervous he was, using his free hand he took the ring box out of his pocket.

"Like living together?" Lizzy asked.

"Sort of" He replied, "Like would you marry me?" He opened the ring box and held it up in front of her.

Silence

More Silence.

He started to panic, inside.

He felt her shoulder shake, he heard her sob. That was not the reaction he was going for.

"Lizzy, what is wrong?" he pulled her around in his arms. "It does not have to be now, but sometime in the future, I need to know if there is a chance."

She raised her face and her eyes sought his. The joy in her face, shining out of her eyes, he could barely breath, never had she looked so lovely, but there were tears running down her face.

"Yes, yes, a million time yes" She pushed herself up onto her knees and started to kiss him with all the passion in her body.

At that moment Will Darcy knew he was the happiest man on earth.

After she had calmed down, unable to stop smiling, she confirmed her response, there was nothing more she wanted than to spend the rest of her life with this man, whom she had only know for almost two months, who she knew would make her happy, challenge her and partner her for the rest of their lives. He slipped the beautiful ring onto her finger, pulled her closer and sealed the deal with another passionate kiss.

"Will!"

"Lizzy"

They heard Janes voice calling them, they raced each other back to the cabin each one wanting to be the first to tell their friends.

There was much excitement as Will who arrived first quickly and breathlessly told Richard, Mary, Jane and Charles that Lizzy had agreed to marry him. Mary and Jane ran out to meet Lizzy engulfing her in their girl group hug.

The excitement was repeated when Theo and Louisa arrived; the engagement was celebrated with watermelon flavoured sparkling water, and lots of teasing and laughter. They played 30 Seconds until midnight at which point Mary and Jane declared themselves exhausted.

Lizzy and Louisa chatted for a little while before going to bed, the bedroom was in darkness when Lizzy walked in, the door closed behind her, she was scooped up and held against a very naked body, put on the bed, slowly, oh so very slowly each item of clothing was removed from her body, little bites and kisses followed each items as it left her body, fingers caressed her from her toes to her short hair. She felt like her body had been set on fire with desire, and yet he would not let her touch him, holding her hands above her head with one hand, the other creating a trail of desire everywhere it went. His mouth was on the pulse point in her neck, sucking and licking, a small bite, her blood raced, she bucked her body and tried to get herself released, but he held firm, his mouth moving down to her breasts to repeat the sucking, licking and biting; she was going to explode. His hand moved between her legs and she was lost, her entire body trembled and shook as she called Wills name. He released her hands and his mouth covered hers in a gentle sweet kiss that belied the passionate fire he had just lit and exploded with her body.

"Will Darcy, that is no way to tease your wife to be!" she whispered, exhausted and happy, gazing at the man that had changed her life so much in such a short time. "There will be revenge for that, no not, because I think every bone in my body just melted, but there will be revenge."

He chuckled as he gathered her up in his arms "I think I can deal with that my love."

At that she snuggled deeper into his embrace and drifted off to sleep, Will lay there for a while listening to her breathing quietly, remembering her body's response to his ministrations, loving that she was so passionate and responsive, and his. He smiled as he fell asleep.


	32. Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

The next morning, Lizzy woke up, Will was still asleep, he was lying on his back his one arm curled around her, the other one flung out to the corner of the bed. She smiled, slipped out of the bed, retrieve the cords of her dressing gown and his dressing gown, after tying his hands to the bed posts she started to sweep his body with her tongue, starting at his feet and working her way up over his legs, hips, chest, neck and face; he started to stir and tried to move his arms, his eyes shot open.

"What?" his voice was alarmed, "Lizzy?" He was trying to release his arms.

"Good morning my darling captive" she smirked at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Revenge, Will, revenge. I warned you." She smirked some more as she started to work her way back down his body with her tongue. Pausing at his hips to execute a few well-placed licks, nips and sucks to hear him groan with desire.

"Lizzy!" his voice was thick passion.

She continued her path down to his feet. Moving up brushing his body with her breasts, stimulating her nipples to hardness, his moans and twisting turning her on even more. Moving up over his body she raise herself on her arms above his face, her breasts within reach of his mouth, he lifted his head putting his lips to her nipples, he delighted in her gasps of pleasure as he suckled. She slipped down, out of his mouths reach, kissing his neck, moving down to nip his nipples, then slowly down to his arousal, his groan of pleasure as she took him in her mouth let her know that she was getting her revenge quite successfully.

As she released his hands, after making sure her revenge was complete, he grab her and rolled her over so that he was on top of her "Miss Bennet Soon to be Mrs Darcy, you are playing with fire, your husband to be only has so much self-control!"

She smiled "I am okay with that; my heart knows that I belong to Mr Darcy mind and body. There is no-one else who can claim me for their own."

Will drew in his breath, her words, the look of love on her face, the offer of all of her, he was truly blessed. 

"I am going for a run, are you going to join me?" Lizzy jumped up out of bed,

"What? After what you just put me through? You must be kidding?" Will lay back on the bed. "Do you draw energy from your unsuspecting bondage victims?" he smiled at her.

"Why, yes, Yes I do!" she responded cheekily, changing into her running gear.

"You go run, I know you have been itching to go for a solo run, and now that Wickham is under lock and key you can spread your wings and run. I will see who is up and start breakfast, then you can eat when you get back." Will encouraged her.

"Thanks babes, she leant over and kissed him, and literally bounded out of the cabin.

She hit her stride with relative ease considering she had not been able to run on her own for weeks, after the first 2kms she was at peace, aiming to get in at least 5km she set off up the trail into the mountains.

As she started the descent back towards the cabin, she felt a sharp pain at the back of her head and then darkness.

Will found Richard and Mary awake, after a quick chat they decided on French toast with bacon and honey for breakfast, Mary prepared the egg and bread, Will cooked the French toast and Richard took charge of the bacon. Louisa came into the kitchen, and offered to get the coffee going, and called for Theo to prepare the table. Everyone appreciated the easy camaraderie they had built up over the weeks, and now with the threat of Wickham gone, it was more relaxed.

They decided to eat even thought Lizzy was not back from her run, everyone else was hungry and they did not know how long she was still going to be, Will put her share in the oven, and joined the others at the table. After two hours, Will and Jane were starting to worry, she did not have her phone with her, and even if she did there was no cell phone reception, she had been gone too long, perhaps because she had not run out for so long she had injured herself. Jane described Lizzy's favourite running trails to Will and Richard, who split the trails up between them and set off.

Richard was jumping down the rocks on the 5km trail when he spotted the fresh blood. Almost right next to it was a boot mark, it was not just any boot mark, it was a military boot, he knew it well, he owned a pair. He started to track the blood and the boot prints, sometimes having to take an educated guess where blood or a footprint would be, which paid off, he reached the road and there were no cars parked nearby but there were tracks on the road going up deeper into the forest. He realised he was quite a bit up from the turn off to the cabin and he did not know the area to know where to look next.

Richard jogged down the road, to the cabin turn off and up to the cabin, Will had already returned to the cabin as agreed and he was frightened for Lizzy when he saw the expression on Richards face.

"It looks like Wickham had a backup plan, an accomplice." Richard said, he did not see the point in pretending everything was okay, he explained what he found. "I need an aerial map of these woods" Looking at Jane and Mary.

Mary indicated for Richard to follow her to the bedrooms, on the wall in the room that Louisa and Theo were using was a block mounted aerial map of the mountainous area.

Richard took it off the wall, taking it to the living area. He poured over the map, muttering to himself.

"What are you looking for?" Jane asked. "That map is ten years old, Mary and I know the area quite well, we might know of something that is not on the map."

"The car tracks lead up into the mountains, that road does not actually lead anywhere according to this map. It eventually becomes a dirt road that ends in the middle of nowhere. So why would anyone drive further up, when they could go down, through Merryton and into the great beyond." Richard asked. "I am looking for a building that is remote, which is just about any structure out here. But it must be one that people will not go to on a whim or stumble on accidentally."

"Rosings!" Mary and Jane said together.

"Rosings?" Richard asked.

"It was built before Merryton was established, the dirt road leads to the drive way, which won't be on the map. Nor will Rosings, the original owner stipulated that it must never be incorporated in a map, as it was to be the jewel of the area and only accessible to a select few.

He slipped and fell down the stairs at one of his parties, his guests thought he was playing around, and he bled to death in the foyer of the grand house surrounded by his party guests.

His nephew inherited the place but did not want it, he did not want to live there but the will prohibited him from selling it, so he just closed it up and hoped the world would forget about it, it is rumoured to have passed from one generation to the other, some old lady owns it now.

We used to dare each other as kids to sneak into the grounds, to go as close to the house as we could. Lizzy always won, she would touch the building and then run back to us, telling us about the creepy noises she heard. "Mary was amazed at how much she remembered, she did a school project on Rosings in the 5th Grade, and most of it had come back to her as she spoke.

"That's the most likely place. Would it be easy to approach the house without being seen?" Richard asked.

"If you go from the back, those windows have all been boarded up, and there are quite a few fruit trees planted out back, they were supposed to encourage the staff to use the fresh fruit from the trees when preparing and cooking food." Mary tried to remember more.

"That is perfect, you are so awesome Mary." Richard was so proud of his girl. As soon as this drama was over, he wanted to cement their relationship.


	33. Chapter 33

CHAPTER 33

"Will, Theo, Charles and I will go up to the house, you ladies must go into town, find Norfolk, tell him that Lizzy has disappeared, we suspect a Wickham accomplice, "Richard took charge once again, being in his element.

The ladies were going to argue but realised that it was a good plan, they took Charles car and drove to town. The men took Lizzy's pickup and drove to the end of the dirt road, at which point they turned off the road and concealed the pickup in the bushes, making sure to hide the tracks where they turned off the road.

They followed the path until the old house came into sight.

"That is some house" Richard muttered.

The large house imposed itself on the landscape, there was no happy union between building and grounds, it was a tribute to bad taste, they could only imagine how tasteless it must have looked in its heyday. They stuck to the tree line on the edge of the property and worked their way to the back of the grounds. Stealthily moving from tree to tree the four men found themselves at the back door, which was boarded shut. Listening very carefully they could not hear any noise inside the house, they began to work their way around the house.

On the side of the house, they found a small white pickup, Richard felt sure they were at the right place.

Voices!

The four men instinctively crouched down, they could hear two distinct voices, a man and a woman.

"Collin, what were you thinking? Getting involved with George Wickham? How am I supposed to get you out of this one?" the woman was berating the man.

"Mother, this was not just George, you wanted her away from Will so that he will marry Anne, that Bingley woman paid us to get her away from Will so that she could marry him, Georges sick fantasies aside, it was not going to end well for her regardless." The man replied.

Richard indicated for them to move back to the back of the house, they hide themselves behind a large berry bush that had run rampant from neglect.

"Aunt Cathy and Collin?" Richard was incredulous.

"And Caroline was involved. I wonder if they know that she suffers from a mental illness." Charles added, ashamed that his sister had been involved with these people.

"I am going to kill them, if they have harmed one hair on her head…" Will was losing it.

"They have hurt her, Will and now we need to focus on getting her out, before they do something worse!" Richard was the voice of reason.

"Where is Theo?" Charles realised their fourth person was missing. They looked around, Theo was dragging pieces of wood, stone and dirt off to one side, clearing what appeared to be hurricane shelter doors set into the ground.

"It's a goods access, back in the day they would add these wagon entrances so that goods being delivered did not get spoiled when it rained. It will lead directly into the house. Most people do not know they exist. "Theo explained as he removed more rubble from the doors.

The other three hurried to help him, once the debris was removed, Theo yanked on one of the doors, it yielded slightly, he yanked again, and the door flew open, almost toppling Theo as he did not expect it to open so soon.

There was a dark, damp smelling tunnel leading under the house, and all four men walked into the tunnel, Theo pulling the door shut behind them, making the already dark tunnel darker.

Richard used the torch on his phone to light the way, the other three followed suit and used their phones. They reached a doorway, which revealed a flight of stairs leading up. Richard indicated for the others to wait for him, he slipped up the stairs, finding himself in an empty pantry or store room, he softly called for the others to join him.

There were two doors leading out of the little room, the first one lead into a wine cellar of sorts, surprisingly there were still quite a few bottles of wine in storage there. The other door lead into a big cold kitchen. The hob in the kitchen was massive, and one could almost see the servants of old working there to prepare the meals for the family.

Once they were in the kitchen the noise of the other occupants was audible, quite clearly, they followed the sound into a little office off the kitchen.

"The pipes" Theo indicated. "It is how the master would communicate with his butler and house keeper. It was the precursor to the telephone.

Charles, Richard and Will looked at Theo incredulously.

"Louisa is obsessed with turn of the century houses and architecture." Theo shrugged.

"What are we going to do with her?" Collins voice carried down the pipes.

"They must be in the main parlour." Said Theo, "Which would be directly above us"

"We must get rid of her." Catherine's voice was heard. "We can leave her here, she did not see you or me, the shock and cold will kill her, she is already going into shock and without treatment, she will die. "

Richard put his hand over Wills mouth, just in time, he realised that sound would travel both ways and if Will lost it down there, they would lose the element of surprise. Will indicated that he would not make a sound and Richard released him. He indicated that they were going to go upstairs.

The stairs lead to the main foyer or entrance of the house, its black and white chequered floor hinted at its former glory. There was a staircase on either side of the foyer leading up and joining to lead up to the first floor to what must have been a very grand landing, designed no doubt for making an entrance. Richard inspected the staircases, they looked solid and safe to use.

He indicated they must ascend, hearing that Catherine and Collin were still discussing what to do with Lizzy. They resembled rats scurrying around as they scampered up the stairs as fast and as quietly as they could to avoid detection.

"Who is there?" They heard Catherine calling. "This is private property, you should not be here!" her foots steps grew louder as she walked towards the foyer.

They lay flat on the landing barely daring to breath; actual rats ran past their faces, their squeaks loud in the quiet of the house.

"Aunt Cathy, it is just the blasted rats, I don't know why you don't just let me shoot them." Collin whined as he followed his aunt.

"This place is derelict enough as it is Collin, without you going all wild west on the rats." Catherine sounded greatly offended at the thought of her son shooting up the house. "When Darcy finally agrees to marry your sister, we will use his money to restore this house to it full glory."

"Why don't we just use our own money?" Collin was still whining.

"Because we don't have money anymore, we need Anne to marry Darcy so that we can be rich again, everyone knows that without money you are nothing. Just like Darcy's little girlfriend, a poor little nothing!" Catherine's cruel words echoed through the foyer.

Will wondered if she knew they were there and was trying to trick him into revealing himself. He was battling to not yell at the witch that was his aunt.

"Come Collin, we need to return to the hotel in town, we missed lunch and I am hungry." Catherine commanded her son, and with that they left the house, the front door closing with a slam.

Richard indicated they must wait, he listened as the pickup started, and drove away.

"Let's split up and look for Lizzy, before my crazy aunt comes back." Richard instructed. "Theo and Charles take downstairs, Will and I will do the first floor, and when we are done we all move up to the second floor."

Everyone turned and ran, Catherine had said that Lizzy was going into shock, so time was of the essence. Will ran desperately from room to room, each one pathetic in its derelict, but no Lizzy. He opened cupboards, and antiquated bathrooms. Calling her name, his desperation tangible.

He could hear the others calling her name as well, footsteps echoing through the house as the four men searched for Lizzy.

Will stopped, took a deep breath and though. Catherine knew Lizzy was in shock, so she was injured and not able to respond, Catherine had mentioned that the cold and shock would kill Lizzy, so she was somewhere cold. He ran back down stairs, back into the kitchen. There were various doors off the kitchen, one going to a scullery, one they came through, then hidden behind a cupboard was another door, wooden with a brand-new lock.

"Here, I found her" Will yelled out. Charles and Theo were the first to arrive, followed shortly by Richard.

"How do you know she is behind there?" Charles asked.

"It's the cold room." Theo offered "The old battle-ax said she was in shock and cold, good thinking Will."

Again, they all looked on incredulously, he just shrugged.

"We need to find a crow bar, metal bar, anything to prise the lock off with." Richard started to look around.

Charles walked out of the kitchen without saying a word, returning a few minutes later with a heavy iron bar, "I have no idea what this was used for, but I noticed it in that office back there."

Richard took the bar and began prying the at the lock, there was a snap, Richard swore, and the door opened, there was blood coming from Richards hand. He wiped it off on his shirt while Will dashed into the room, the chill hitting him like a wall. Curled up in a corner was a small shivering figure with a massive bump on the back of her head, and a lot of dried blood.

He scooped Lizzy up into his arms, carrying her out of the cold room. "We need to leave before they come back." Without stopping he walked back the way they came, assuming the others would follow him. Which they did, Richard retained the iron bar, just in case.

As they emerged out of the basement entrance, Will could feel Lizzy's shiver becoming more pronounced. He put her down in a patch of weak sunlight, pulled off his jacket and put it on her. Picking her up again, he said "There is no point sneaking around the perimeter we know they are gone, we don't know when they are coming back, lets head directly to the car, so that we can get her to the cabin and get her warm. "

Will set a very brisk pace to the car, with Richard sprinting ahead, to get the car started, and the heater on. Lizzy was propped on the back seat between Charles and Will, as Richard drove out of their hiding spot and down the dirt road.

As Richard stopped the car at the cabin parking, Will slid Lizzy out of the car, and carried her to the cabin, Charles had sprinted ahead to unlock the cabin, so that Will could just walk in and place Lizzy on the couch in front of the fire, which Theo was now starting to build up, Richard got a duvet from one of the rooms, instructing Charles to make them all something warm to drink, preferable hot chocolate for Lizzy to raise her sugar as well as her temperature. Will got a warm cloth and started to clean the blood out off her head and neck. She whimpered a little when he touched the bump but allowed him to clean it.

Richard checked his firearm and suggested that Theo have his weapon at the ready, "We have no idea what they are going to do next. Once we have Lizzy stabilized we are going back to town to report this. That crazy aunt and cousin of mine need to be locked up right alongside Wickham."

Jane, Louisa and Mary arrived twenty minutes later, Lizzy was starting to become aware, now that the worse of the cold had worn off. She was still shivering, Will had basically wrapped himself around her to share his warmth with her. Jane dashed to her room and came back with a hot water bottle which was filled and given to Lizzy.

After a while Lizzy was feeling herself, tired and hungry but not as cold. Her shivering had abated, and she could speak coherently. "I was running the 5k trail, as I started my descent I was hit on the back of the head, with something really hard." She put her hand up to feel the bump she knew was there. "Ouch! When I came to I was lying in that very cold room, there was a woman and a man, he kept referring to her as mother, she was telling me I was trash, I did not deserve Will Darcy, how dare I aspire to such levels, a lowly person such as myself. It got so cold eventually I just went to sleep, as I fell asleep I heard her say that I was going to die there. I was too cold to care."

Will pulled her even closer "Never, I would never let that happen."

She rubbed her face against his, "I noticed Mr Darcy, my hero." She looked up at each of the men, "You are all my hero's. I could hear people shouting my name, I just could not reply I was just too cold, but I knew I was not alone anymore. It made me not want to give up."

Will bundled Lizzy up into the car, with Jane who did not want her sister out of her sight. They drove down to the hospital to give Lizzy a check up and then to the police station, Officer Norfolk was not in, they made a statement, Will positively identified his Aunt and Cousin as the perpetrators.

They were assured that kidnapping and assault came with heavy sentences, Will realised that his aunt was not in a position to buy her way out of this. She was broke and would have to answer to the law as a normal person. He was concerned about his cousin Anne, he knew she did not want to marry him, but she was very reliant on her mother, and now she would be on her own, without the advantage of being rich.

As they were about to pull away from the police station, Lizzy could see something was bugging him. "You can tell me Will, remember we agreed to always be open and honest with each other."

He explained about Anne, Lizzy acknowledge his concerns as very valid. "Why don't we go and fetch her? There is plenty of room at Netherfield, I don't think Charles would mind or she can stay in my room at my parents' house. Just until we know how things stand with her finances and her mother.''

"I don't think Charles would mind at all, I think it would be fun to have more people at Netherfield, the house is so big." Jane piped up from the backseat. "Lets go fetch her quickly, and take her to the cabin with us tonight."

Will thought yet again, what luck had brought Charles to Netherfield, so that he and Will could meet these incredible women.


	34. Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

Will drove to his aunt's town house, Anne answered the door, her fear was evident as she threw herself into Wills arms. "Oh Will, you will not believe what my crazy ass mother has done this time!"

"Actually, I do, which is why we are here. Anne this is my fiancé Lizzy Bennet and her sister Jane, Lizzy and Jane, this is my cousin Anne." Will responded.

Anne took a step back her face a mask of horror as she realised who was standing on her doorstep., "I am so so so sorry for what my mother and brother did to you. I promise you I have no intention of marrying Will, no offense Will but ew, he is my cousin for Pete's sake."

"Hey, meet my crazy ass family and you will realise you are keeping good company" Lizzy said as she took Anne's hand gently. "We have come to kidnap you in return…but only if you want to be kidnapped." Her eyes twinkling as she teased Anne.

"You want me to come with you, like a friend?" Anne's eyes filled with tears. "Why would you do that?"

"Because you are Wills family, and we are going to be Wills family, which makes us family." Jane said gently taking Anne's other hand. "We won't accept no for an answer."

"Let's get a bag packed and head for those hills, or that cabin in the hills" Will joked.

Jane went with Anne to pack a bag, while Will hugged Lizzy, sneaking a few kisses in for good measure.

Their arrival at the cabin was met with lots of hugs and kisses, Anne was introduced to everyone, and was soon ensconced on the sofa with Mary, with Richard hovering near by pretending to tend the fire. He was desperately trying to remember if Anne knew any really reprehensible stories about him; luckily because she was always ill, especially when he was in his late teens early twenties and was at his worst, she did not know what he had gotten up to. Never had he been so scared of losing someone before.

Mary found herself delighted with Anne, they had a lot of similar tastes, and their mothers had been opposite sides of the spectrum, with Mary more or less being ignored and Anne being smothered, the end result was the same. They had agreed that Mary and Anne would take the twin beds in the room, Richard would take the couch. Mary feel a bit sad at being separated from Richard, but it was only for the night and then they were back at the apartment.

Lizzy and Will did not spend much time with everyone else, after supper they had excused themselves and headed straight to their room. Will needed to hold her, he had come so close to losing her, he doubted they would have found Lizzy if Richard had not been with them.

"I am alright, Will, you can relax." She murmured into his shoulder.

"I don't think you realised, how much danger you were in today Lizzy. My aunt was determined to kill you one way or the other. I had not idea how unbalanced she was." He held her closer as he said this. "Can we get married sooner rather than later?" he watched her face, "I cant help feeling you will be safer once we are married, because then there will be nothing anyone can do to change it."

He felt her laugh, "Will, I would like us to get married as soon as possible, not to be safe, but because I know we are meant to be together. It does not matter what your aunt or my mother, or anyone else for that matter, does, we belong to and with each other."

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, it was unbelievable that this amazing woman loved him as much as he loved her. He ran his fingers through her short hair "Its growing back, are you going to cut it again?"

"Not in the near future, it makes me very cold at this time of the year." She loved the feel of his fingers in her hair.

It seemed that everyone else followed their lead, and the cabin was soon very quiet with the gentle sounds of people sleeping breaking the silence every now and again.

Office Norfolk was at the cabin just as everyone finished breakfast. He asked that Will, Lizzy and Richard come with him. The others said that they would clean and pack up, they would meet them back at Netherfield when they were done.

Lizzy was not impressed, she had hoped to spend the rest of the day hiking with Will, she would be returning to University in a couple of weeks, their time together would become very rationed.

"Normally I would not involve the victims in this but as Richard is assigned to this case, which has grown from an attempted rape into something a lot bigger, and I think you guys need to know everything." Miles Norfolk explained to Richard.

Arriving at the station, they were taken to a room that looked into an interview room with one-way glass, sitting in the interview room was Collin. Officer Norfolk left them and went into the other room.

"Collin de Bourgh, I am Officer Norfolk, I am part of the team that was investigating Mr Wickham, who is currently in custody, and isolated. He cannot get messages out and he cannot get messages in. We have enough to incarcerate him for a very long time; however, you can ensure that he stays in longer, and that we are lenient when it comes to sentencing you. You are not the type of person who does well in prison."

Lizzy was amazed, without raising his voice or getting violent Officer Norfolk had gone from a mild-mannered man to a menacing figure, the threat in his voice could not be misinterpreted, looming over Collin in such a way that Collin had sunk into the chair in an effort to make himself smaller.

"What do you want to know?" he stammered out.

"Start at the beginning, when did you meet Wickham and how are you involved with him to start with." Norfolk took a seat opposite the very intimidated man.

"I met Wickham when we visited Pemberley as a family when I was fourteen, we became friends, George looked out for me, gave me drugs, alcohol, all the porn I could watch, as we got older we started hanging out in pubs and clubs together, George always had girls hanging around him, getting free drinks and drugs, there was always a good time with George. I could always count on getting laid with some girl George had rejected." He closed his eyes as he spoke, reliving his 'glory days'.

"After Will threw George out of the house he came to us, my mother could not stand him but found him useful when it came to distasteful tasks that she would not do. He had standing orders to seduce any girl Will got close to, and distance him from friends. Unfortunately, people that Will took the time to befriend ended up being very loyal to Will, so George was less successful with friends but he managed to get quite a few girls off Will. George used the money he made off my mother to set up his network, people to traffic drugs and girls. He never actually touched either, but he was the mastermind behind his business, with two other people acting as a front for him. He is also very into child pornography, again, never being directly involved in the manufacture or distribution, but he was the final say in scripts and production. He never kept material anywhere he lived or worked, it would be stored at the production company premises, which was in someone else's name, and he would go there and watch the making, or the final movies. The premises would move every three months or so, depending how under surveillance he was. He has policemen on his payroll, to ignore his various activities. "Collins seemed to enjoy telling them all Georges dirty laundry.

"Then he moved to Merryton, he managed all his operations remotely, via burner cell. He was obsessed with a girl there, speaking about how he would run things after he married her, not wanting her to know what he did. Then one of his front men got shot, died a few days after, Wickham left Merryton to come sort out his business. He hunted down the guys that killed his man, it was a rival operation wanting to move in, knowing that George was not directly involved in his business, they under estimated how strong George was, and that he had taken years to build his network, they could only dream of having a network like this. George had those guys killed, it could never be traced back to him."

"Once he had re-established his control, he moved back to Merryton, to get his girl back, only to discover that this time it was Will taking his girl away. He had not been in town long when some woman, Caro approached him to help her separate Will from the girl. She would give him money and information so that he knew where they would be so that he could show up and upset Will or force him into losing his temper, making him look bad. They arranged for her to get Will to show up when George was proposing to the girl at the coffee shop. When that did not work, he turned the charm on with the girl's mother, gaining access to her house. He wanted to up cameras in her house, specifically her bedroom but her sisters were always around, so he had people watch the house so that he knew when she was home. He planned to drug her and have sex with her, so that Will would reject her as used goods. He believed that the girl loved him but Will was just distracting her. "

Then she spent the night at the cabin with him, and he got desperate to have the girl, rather than waiting until she drank the bottle of doctored water, he tried to have sex with her while she was sleeping. From then onwards she spent all her time with Will basically moving in at Netherfield, George was in such a rage, he let his business slip. That Caro woman apparently was a sandwich short of a picnic, losing the plot at some stage so he no longer had a hot line to Netherfield as to Wills movements. "

"My mom found out that Will was with the girl and had a blue fit, she planned for Anne to marry Will, which is crazy, they are first cousins, it would be wrong, but she would not listen to reason, she asked George to do something to separate them from each other. But he was not to hurt Will. My mom has wasted away our entire fortune on crap, expensive holidays, cars, clothing, art auctions, which would not be so bad if she bought something with some kind of resale value, but she bought junk, her money funded Georges crimes but there was very little profit involved for her. She wanted Anne to marry Will so that she could get her hands-on Wills money. "

"George devised this hectic plan to force the girl to marry him. He broke into the hospital where the girl's sister got treatment for some illness, he stole prescription pads and random client files, the only one he wanted was the sisters. He was going to set up a medical facility at Rosings, kidnap the sister. Lizzy would have to marry him for her sister to get medical care and to be released. He had a minister on standby for the wedding, he was going to restore Rosings and they would live them never having contact with the outside world. But then Rich started hanging around with the sister, instead of being by herself all the time as she used to do, she spent all of her time with Rich, the one person that George is really scared off. He got desperate, he spent all his time watching Will and the girl. He decided that he would even kill Will if he had to, to get the girl."

"When mom found out that Wickham had been arrested and she could not get access to him, she decided to take the girl out herself; she made me watch the hut, when the girl went out alone I had to knock her out and take her to Rosings. Mom said to hit her hard, so that she would go into shock, that ways we would not be killing her directly, nature would take care of her. Neither of us would be culpable. Guess she does not really understand the law huh?" Collins seemed to have run out of steam where it came to Wickham and his mother.

Lizzy and Will had gotten quieter and quieter as Collins story progressed, Wills arm around Lizzy drew her to him until she was pressed right up against him, every now and again she gave a shudder as she realised how evil Wickham actually was, and that she had never really known him. Everything that was between them before was a lie, he was a hardened criminal without conscience or true feeling.

"I can honestly say that in all my years as a sales man I could never have guessed how deeply evil Wickham is" Richard said looking at Collins sitting in the interview room.

Will started to laugh, followed by Lizzy. "Yip, I guess sales man training does not prepare you for everything in life." Will chirped back.

Officer Norfolk had left the interview room and joined them. "I don't think you could fully appreciate how much you guys thwarted George Wickham, the extent of what he had planned in relation to what he actually achieve is astounding. Your family's closeness, your love for each other and those in your lives protected you from the bulk of his nefarious plans."

"We have more than enough from Collin de Bourgh to convict Wickham and Mrs de Bourgh, Collin will be tried for assault and as an accomplice to kidnapping. Collin has given us access to journals, bank accounts and other documentation that will implicate Wickham and de Bourgh in more crimes that we were aware off, including extortion, money laundering, human trafficking, pornography, yes Mrs de Bourgh was involved there too, drug trafficking and distribution, kidnapping, bribery, theft and murder. And that is before we have done a complete audit and investigation of the evidence."

"George Wickham will in all likelihood face the death penalty, after killing the men who killed his business partner, he no longer hesitated to pull the trigger himself when someone went against him or got in his way. Mrs de Bourgh will get no less than 20 years for attempted murder and kidnapping, assault with intent, along with accessory to multiple of Wickham's crimes, as she was more often than not involved.

A very subdued Richard, Will and Lizzy walked out of the station, heading toward Lizzy's pickup no-one knew what to say. Will and Lizzy got in the front as Richard slid into the back.

Arriving at Netherfield they found the others in the lounge, watching a movie, End Game by the look of it. Charles paused the movie, "Is it something you can share with us?" he asked, noticing the serious expression on all three of his friends faces.

Richard decided to tell them everything, Norfolk had not asked them to not say anything, and everyone in the room had been touched by Wickhams evil, even Anne. He told everyone to get themselves something to drink and eat, then he told them everything that had happened, from Georges early days with Wills family to Collins family's involvement with Wickham; Wickhams obsession with Lizzy and his aunts deluded madness.

There was stunned silence when he finished,

"Caroline was involved with Wickham?" Theo asked, totally stunned that his sister in law could be so evil.

"That would explain her disappearances after we moved here, remember how insistent she was that we all go to the Coffee Grinder that night, and we walked in on George proposing? I thought Will would pop a blood vessel when he saw them." Louisa mused out loud.

"I think we need discuss this, answer the questions we can and then tomorrow we move on. Otherwise it is going to eat us up." Jane, always the voice of reason, spoke up.

Everyone started talking, breaking into groups, asking Lizzy, Will and Richard questions, revelations were made, answer were given, there were times where Jane and Louisa cried, realising the harm that their loved ones faced or caused. After a while Will noticed Lizzy was pale and had started withdrawing.

"That is enough for tonight, if we have to we can do it again tomorrow, although I would prefer not to. We need reset our minds, lets do something fun or even stupid." Will announced.

"Cause you have not done enough stupid in your life?" Richard asked, a wry grin on his face.

"Charades" Anne suggested, then blushed realising that she was the new comer to the group, and the last person who should be pushing their opinion.

"Yes!" confirmed Mary "Charades, guys vrs girls, otherwise couples like Jane and Charles, and Will and Lizzy will wipe the floor with us mere mortal, they finish each other sentences and whatnot. "

Everyone laughed and agree with the team suggestion.

Much hilarity ensued, each charade getting more and more absurd, with Charles, Will and Richard leading the fray. One would have been hard pressed to recognise the sombre group from earlier.

Eventually they drifted up to bed, each one cleaning their own dishes. Will and Lizzy were the last ones up, checking the doors and windows, before heading to their rooms.


	35. Chapter 35

CHAPTER 35

It was not quite light when Will woke, realising that Lizzy was not in bed next to him. He glanced around, she was standing at the window, watching the sunrise. He slid out of bed taking the fluffy white blanket with him, wrapped his arms around Lizzy as he looked over her shoulder, it was a very majestic sight; the garden being slowly illuminated by the rising sun, casting a golden glow onto Lizzy's face.

"Can we get married today?" Will startled himself as he asked Lizzy, he just knew that he wanted to be with her forever and today was the day.

"Yes" she said without question or hesitation.

"Really? You don't want a traditional wedding with invited guests, a church, flowers and all that stuff?"

"No, I just want you." She turned around in his arms and looked him straight in the eye. "Nothing else, just you."

He kissed her, deeply and passionately, then swept her up in his arms and spun around "We are getting married today!' he almost yelled.

A few minutes later Charles and Jane rushed into their room "Is everything alright? Why are you shouting?" Charles asked, his eyes wild with panic.

"We are getting married, today" Lizzy said with a small self-satisfied smirk on her face.

"Oh, mother is going to be so disappointed," Jane said.

Everyone looked at her, "Our mother has lived our wholes lives just to plan our big and outrageous weddings, and now that is not going to happen." Jane explained. "Not that you should plan it around her…I think it is awesome that you are so certain" her eyes turned to Charles, and then she dropped her head.

"Jane?" Charles said, his hands reaching into his pocket "Jane, please look up"

She looked up, in his outstretched hand was a ring box, he opened it, large solitaire diamond sat happily situated on its gold band. The band itself looked like a golden cord, the detail was exquisite. Jane looked up at Charles face, his smile was so wide, "Marry me, I don't want to live without you, without knowing that you are 100% mine." She flung herself into his arms as she whispered "Yes, Yes, without a doubt Yes!"

"But we are not getting married today!" he said quickly "I want to share the whole wedding experience with you."

"Me too, with you" Jane replied as he put the ring on her finger.

By now the noise had woken the rest of the inhabitants of the house, no-one had to explain what all the excitement was about, Jane proudly showed everyone her ring and basked in the congratulations that followed.

"Wait" Charles shouted about the excited squeals and screams of joy. "We have a wedding to plan for today" he pointed at Lizzy and Will.

Jane switched to project planner mode and started to delegate tasks.

"Mary, you, Anne and Richard need to go and invite our friends and family. Theo and Louisa, please would you go and get flowers, Jelly's in town will be able to source some nice arrangements and table pieces. Charles is going to round up my mother and sisters to set up here." She turned on Will and Lizzy "You two need to go and sort out your outfits, I will take Lizzy, and Will you will have to do this one solo. I am going to contact Charlotte she and her mother will sort out the food."

And with that everyone scattered to their allotted tasks.

Jane all but strong-armed Lizzy into getting dressed and into town, where she dragged her from dress shop to dress shop; after two hours of unsuccessfully trying on what Lizzy suspected to be every possible dress option in town, they stopped at the Coffee Grinder to refuel. Janes phone had been ringing all morning, like a traffic controller she directed and redirected each person.

This time it was Aunt Philips, Jane got excited. "We will be right over Aunt" ending the call she chided Lizzy to hurry up and drink her streaming hot coffee.

Arriving at their aunt's house, they were greeted at the door by her mother and her aunt, Lizzy got very suspicious.

"I have kept this for year, hoping that one day it would be useful to someone, and I think that day has arrived." Her aunt said, her voice bubbling with excitement. Her mother was grinning from ear to ear, which surprised Lizzy totally, she was expecting the riot act for not allowing her mother to plan this wedding to the ninth degree.

Her aunt took her hand and lead her to her sewing room. Hanging on her cupboard door was the most incredible dress Lizzy had ever seen. It was white with simple lines, that gave the dress an understated elegance, miniscule pearlescent beads lined each seam, making the dress sparkle as the light caught it. The halter neck was modest in the front, with a fitted bodice, the waistline was slightly dropped, the deal breaker was the back of the dress, it was so low there was barely any back at all, the skirt of the dress flared out slightly and form a short train at the back.

"Lizzy" Jane whispered in awe, "it is perfect for you, you have to try it on."

She put the dress on and turned around to look at herself in the mirror, it was perfect, it fitted like a glove, and despite the low back it did not look cheap or slutty, it was very classy.

Her aunt appeared with a small tiara and veil, which she fitted on Lizzy's head, completing the picture. "I got married in this dress, my mother sewed it for me, by hand, it took her my entire engagement to finish, every night she would sew and bead. Your uncle shed tears when he saw me, and I believe your Will will also shed tears when he sees you in it.

Suddenly the room was filled with sobbing. Her mother had taken one look and broken down, her daughter was getting married, she looked beautiful. Matilda had never really understood her daughter, and sometimes she did not even like her, she was too clever, too strong and independent. This gorgeous creature in front of her made her realise that she had never really seen her daughter, never really known her daughter, not this one. It had been there all along, and it had scared her.

Lizzy hugged her mother, trying really hard to keep the tears off the dress, her aunt stepped in and took her mother off to go and get some tea. Jane helped Lizzy out of her dress.

"That is the dress sorted, now we need to find a justice of the peace to officiate the wedding, Will was going to sort out the licenses. And a ring for Will, lets do the ring first and the official after. "Jane took charge again. It was touch and go that she did not end up like her mother when she saw Lizzy in the dress.

Lizzy picked out a platinum wedding band that had an industrial look to it, she had never seen Will wear any jewellery, but she was sure if he did it would be ultra-masculine.

Finding the official proved easier than they thought, leaving the jewellers they rand into Officer Norfolk who had heard about the wedding, having been invited by Richard, he offered his assistance in any capacity, adding that he and Richard were justices of the peace.

Lizzy phoned Will "Richard or Miles as our official?"

"Richard" Will replied without hesitation. "Charles is my best man, I would be honoured if we were to be married by Richard."

"Sorted" said Jane, we can return to Netherfield and get you ready. The guys are getting ready at Richards flat.

When they got to Netherfield it was obvious that their family and friends had been busy.

A nomad tent had been set up in the garden with a bar on one side, fully stocked, and a dance floor in the middle. The DJ was setting up next to the bar. The three couches from the lounge had been placed outside as an informal sitting area.

Inside the house, chairs had been placed facing a podium and flower arrangements decked each corner of the room, small posies were at the end of each aisle, a white carpet stretched from the door to the podium, a rope had been put across the aisle to prevent people walking on the pristine carpet. The cosy lounge was a wedding chapel.

The dining room had been rearranged to accommodate a buffet laden with food, Lizzy was sure the tables were buckling under the weight. A tower of chocolate truffles stood in the middle of the room on a table, it was the 'wedding cake".

Jane dragged Lizzy upstairs, shoved her into the shower, dashing to her own room to get ready quickly. Returning to Lizzy's room she found her sister sitting on the bed, dazed.

"Jane, shouldn't I be nervous or something?" she asked as she became aware of her sister standing there.

"I don't know, I have never gotten married before" Jane teased her sister.

"I am not, there is a certainty in me, that there is nothing else I want to do more than marry Will today" Lizzy said looking at her sister with the most adorable smile on her face.

'Then let's get you wedding ready!" Jane declared.

They left Lizzy's hair to dry naturally, her curls were beginning to form now that her hair had a bit of length, forming the most enchanting curls around her face. Her make up was kept to the bare minimum, just enough to give her an ethereal glow. Then came the dress, tiara and veil.

"Oh no!" Jane exclaimed "we forgot about shoes."

"No we didn't, well I didn't" Lizzy said, calming her sister down. "I am not planning to wear shoes." I want to feel the ground beneath my feet."

Jane decided not to fight about it. It was almost time to start the proceedings.

She led Lizzy out onto the landing, lined up were her other sisters, Mary was in blue formal dress, Kitty was in a pink formal dress, Lydia was in gentle green formal dress, the dresses other than being different colours, were identical to the one Jane was wearing in a rich cream colour. At the end of the row of sisters was a young girl with long blonde hair. Anne stepped from behind the girl, "Lizzy, this is Wills sister Georgiana, Georgiana this is Lizzy, Wills wife to be."

Georgiana's face light up, she flung herself at Lizzy, "I am so happy to meet you in person, I have never seen Will so happy and he has told me all about you." She stepped back from the stunned woman.

Lizzy noticed she was wearing the same dress, but in lilac. Matching her sisters. Then Georgiana reached up and pulled off her hair. Underneath the wig, her short blonde hair also matched her sisters cropped hair. A testament to her own cancel battle.

"I have no idea how you guys pulled this off, you all look so beautiful." Lizzy was seconds away from tears.

"Ooops, I need to go. Said Mary, she turned and dashed down the stairs.

"What was that all about? "Lizzy asked.

"You know she can't bear to be away from Richard for too long." Georgiana answered dryly, a naughty smile threatening to take over her face.

Suddenly the sound of Canon in D by Pachelbel being played by an orchestra, sounded throughout the house. "Its time" said Jane.

With that the three younger girls, Lydia, Kitty and Georgiana linked arms and walked calmly down the stairs and through the door of what used to be the lounge.

Jane then stepped forward and followed them.

Out of the nearest bedroom came her father, and her mother, they each took an arm and started to walk her down the stairs.

"I could not lose you to a better man my Lizzy, he is perfect for you." Her father said, looking into her eyes, a twinkle in his own eyes, "and I rejoice at thought of gaining a son, of his calibre."

"Thanks Dad" she whispered, willing herself not to cry.

Will thought he was going to faint as she entered the door with her parents, he could barely contain his impatience waiting for her sisters, and …HIS SISTER? Walking down the aisle, followed by Jane, he could actually hear Charles smile it was so broad.

Then there she was, a parent on either side, silent tears running down the face of his future mother in law, his future father in law look as if he was about to pop with pride, but Lizzy had her eyes fixed on him, a small expectant smile played on her lips as she glided towards him. He glanced down, a small delicate foot, peaked out from under her dress as she walked forward, she was barefoot! At that he was immediately aroused. For goodness sake, it was just her foot! She smirked at him, noticing his reaction. Tonight was going to amazing, she was more that ready to take things to the next level.

Keeping eye contact with his beautiful bride, Will bent over at the waist, undid his shoe laces, removed his shoe, then his sock, and then the other shoe and sock were removed. Lizzy looked at her tuxedoed, bare footed groom waiting for her and she started to run. Everyone started to laugh.

Her father was hard pressed to keep up with his daughter, catching up to her he handed her over to Will, with a handshake to his almost son in law and a kiss for his precious daughter.

"Dearly Beloved….began Richard, "and Will…."

The ceremony was short and sweet, Lizzy and Will made their own vows to each other, in front of their friends and family, and God. Richard declared them man and wife. The kiss that followed left more than just the bride and groom hot under the collar.

The celebration that followed was as loud as it was long, carrying on until the wee small hours of the morning, not that the bridal couple were aware, as soon as they politely could, they left in Lizzy's pickup, dragging the obligatory cans, arriving at the cabin in record time.

Waking up the next morning Lizzy smiled, now her body knew what her heart had know for quite a while, giving her virginity to the man she married was the most precious thing she could have done, because he could give her the same gift from himself.

Epilogue

As the Bennet family and their friends restored order to Netherfield, each one reflected on their own happiness or state of being. Mary and Richard avoided making eye contact the whole morning, Jane was beginning to think they had a fight, when she saw them link hands and walk out into the garden.

"Mary, I don't understand. I thought you felt the same for me as I do for you. We can't carry on as we have for the last few weeks. No, I can't carry on like this, I need more, I want more…I can't bear it that you do not feel the same." Richards voice was stressed, and he was not happy.

"Richard, do you remember exactly what I said to you last night when you asked me to make our relationship official, and to live with you?" she asked him, looking him straight in the eye.

"You said 'No Richard, not now and not here'." He answered her.

She smiled at him. He thought about it, then he understood.

"So if I was to ask you here and now, what would you response be?" he asked her.

"Definitely a Yes!" she smiled as she threw her arms around his neck.

"I am sorry I did not listen properly last night or understand, and I am sorry we did not spend the night together because I was busy being so stupid." He said as he nestled into her neck to kiss the pulse point there.

"I did not want you asking me whilst you were caught up in the moment, Jane and Charles had just gotten engaged, you had just officiated over Lizzy and Wills wedding, there was a lot of emotions running high last night. I needed you to ask me when you were off that high, so that I knew it was real." She explained to him, wondering how long she could resist the assault on her neck.

He pulled back, "Mary, whether you like it or not, I suggest you come to terms with the fact that I love you and I AM going to marry you as soon as you are ready to take that step with me.


End file.
